Nita almost laughed. “You are shamelessly relentless. What I don’t understand is why you’re expending the energy when I’m sure you could fi nd company with no effort at all.”
“Maybe I don’t like people having unfounded impressions of me.”
“People?” Nita tilted her own fl ashlight and Deo turned her face away, but not before Nita saw the unhappiness in her eyes. “What people?”
Deo grabbed Nita’s hand and tugged. “Come on. Let’s check out the kitchen.”
• 103 •
RADCLY fFE
Recognizing the avoidance ploy because she used it so often herself when there was something she didn’t want to discuss, Nita didn’t push. Deo was certainly entitled to her privacy, and besides, discussing personal matters wasn’t the wisest thing to do when she was trying to keep her distance. Whatever Deo’s troubles might be, they weren’t her concern.
The wide central hall was divided in the center of the house into two narrower passages by the take off of the central staircase that rose to a second-fl oor balcony level. As she recalled, the formal living room and dining room were off the right hallway, and the parlor and library were off the left. The large kitchen occupied the entire fi rst fl oor rear. With only their fl ashlights to guide them, Nita felt the oppressive atmosphere of the long abandoned house closing in around her. Refl exively, she tightened her grip on Deo’s hand. Deo’s palm was slightly bumpy—
work calluses, she presumed—and very warm. For a fl eeting second she imagined how that rough, heated skin would feel chafi ng over her nipples. The unexpected image and the sharp stab of excitement that shot through her groin made her gasp.
“You okay?” Deo asked.
“Yes,” Nita responded sharply, aware that her voice sounded breathy.
“Even though the place has been closed up for years, it doesn’t smell damp or moldy,” Deo observed, stopping just inside the kitchen.
She shone her light over the fl oor, walls, and ceiling fi rst and then moved on to highlight the wood counters and cabinets. The appliances had all been removed long ago. “No evidence of water damage. That’s a good sign. The roof is likely sound and the window casements are probably in good shape.”
Nita extracted her hand from Deo’s, and immediately the tension in her chest eased. She took a deep breath and chided herself for her mindless response. She had gone far too long without any kind of physical intimacy. That’s all it was.
“So what do you think?”
“I’m sorry?” Nita realized Deo had asked her a question while she’d been analyzing her reaction to Deo’s touch.
“I was asking whether you wanted to convert the interior to something contemporary or go for a historical restoration.”
“If I’d wanted a contemporary house, I would have bought one.”
• 104 •
Winds of Fortune
“Well, that makes sense,” Deo said, a note of confusion in her voice.
Nita fl ushed. She was making too much of a brief visceral reaction and allowing it to completely disrupt her control. It was ridiculous. “I want to renovate the house with materials and design that are historically suitable, within reason. I don’t intend to walk around the house at night carrying a candle.”
Deo laughed. “I think it probably would have been gaslights.”
“I consider fl ush toilets, electricity, central heat and air, telephones, and cable to be essential,” Nita said dryly.
“It’s going to cost you something to put in the air and bring the electrical system up to today’s standards,” Deo observed.
“I have considered that.” Nita saw no reason to explain that she had money. Her family would take nothing from her now and being single and having gone to medical school on scholarships, she had very little debt. The house was her indulgence.
“I want to check the cellar before we go upstairs,” Deo said. “I recommend you wait here.”
“To save us repeating this conversation, I’m buying this house and therefore I’m coming with you.”
Deo illuminated Nita’s face again. “Afraid of spiders?”
Even in the semi-darkness, Nita could make out the mischief in her eyes. She gave Deo a cold stare.
Deo grinned. “Guess not.” She reached for Nita’s hand once more, and after a second’s hesitation, Nita took it. “Stay close, okay? People leave the damnedest things lying around in these empty houses, and who knows what kind of critters might be living down there.”
“Charming,” Nita muttered, moving closer to Deo in the impenetrable darkness that enclosed her as soon as Deo moved her light away. As she followed, she couldn’t help but occasionally brush up against Deo’s back. Even if her nipples hadn’t tightened at the slightest touch of her breasts against Deo’s body, she wouldn’t have been able to deny how much she enjoyed the contact. Her blood was practically singing with excitement.
“I don’t think anyone’s been down here for a while,” Deo grunted as she tucked the fl ashlight under her arm and banged the slide bolt with the heel of her hand. It moved with a rusty groan. After pushing the door open and fl ooding the stairwell with her bright light, she
• 105 •
RADCLY fFE
announced, “All the stairs are here and look like they’re in reasonably good shape. Just let me test each one on the way down.”
“Maybe we should postpone this until tomorrow,” Nita said.
“There’s no point in taking chances.”
Deo pivoted on the top stair, the movement bringing her face very close to Nita’s. “Is that what you really believe? Or are you just afraid that you might like it?”
Nita’s jaw tightened. “You’re in a dangerous position if your intention is to irritate me.” She rested her index fi ngertip lightly in the center of Deo’s chest. “It wouldn’t take much to knock you down these stairs on your ass.”
“I like you when you’re angry.” Deo let go of Nita’s hand and grasped her fi nger. She lifted it and delicately touched her tongue to the tip. When Nita snatched it away, she laughed. “I don’t mind taking risks.”
“One more move like that and this inspection is over,” Nita said, closing her fi st until the tingling in her fi nger dissipated.
“All right,” Deo said softly. “I promise I won’t touch you again until you ask me to.”
“Then that will be never.”
“I do need to hold your hand on these stairs, though,” Deo amended and extended her hand.
Nita took it. “As long as you remember it’s just business.”
“Fair enough.”
“And as it happens, I’m not wild about spiders,” Nita remarked as she followed Deo downstairs. “Feel free to dispense with any webs that come our way.”
Laughing, Deo swept her arm over their heads as she walked.
“Wait at the bottom of the stairs until I get a good look at what’s down here.”
Nita had the sense of a large room interrupted at intervals by thick fl oor-to-ceiling wooden posts. The bright circle of her light illuminated several rough wooden chests overlaid with inches of dust, a chifforobe, several broken chairs, and a rusty oil tank next to an ancient furnace.
The fl oor was hard packed dirt. A faint shimmering illumination at the far end of the room marked Deo’s location.
“Anything of interest down there?” Nita called.
“Not much. Looks like someone tried to jack up the— shit! ”
• 106 •
Winds of Fortune
Nita jumped at the sound of a loud crash. At the same time, Deo’s light winked out and a cloud of dust rolled eerily toward her through the beam of light she directed at Deo’s location. Quickly, she covered her face and turned away. She felt grit coat the back of her neck and her exposed forearms, but she didn’t even consider rushing back upstairs.
Something had happened to Deo, and nothing else mattered.
“Deo! Deo, are you hurt?”
At the sound of coughing, the fear squeezing Nita’s heart eased.
“Deo?”
“Broke my fucking light,” Deo grumbled from somewhere in the darkness.
“Just stand still and keep talking. I’m coming to get you.”
“No! There’s debris all over the fl oor.”
Ignoring her, Nita started forward, alternating between illuminating the ceiling above her and the fl oor in front of her. What looked like large chunks of lathe and plaster lay heaped about.
“What happened?” Nita called.
“Someone used a fence post for a strut and it was rotted through. A piece of the underfl ooring came down. Shine the light at the ceiling and stop walking. God damn it,” Deo snapped, “I’ll come to you.”
Since it made sense for Deo to walk out of darkness toward the light, rather than for her to keep pushing into darkness, Nita did as Deo requested. A minute later Deo, her dark hair and T-shirt white with dust, appeared within the circle of Nita’s light. Against the pale powder coating Deo’s face, the bright red trickle of blood that ran from her right temple down her cheek looked garish, as if it had been intentionally painted there.
“You’re hurt,” Nita said, and while her physician’s mind told her that the injury could not be serious considering that Deo was walking under her own steam and talking coherently, her stomach clenched with worry.
“A few scratches,” Deo said in disgust. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to shake that damned strut. Fucking beginner’s mistake.”
“When I was in medical school,” Nita said quietly, “the lover of one of the residents was killed in an accident almost exactly like this.”
Tentatively, she touched Deo’s cheek next to the thick red rivulet of blood. “Except in her case, a beam hit her in the back of the neck and killed her instantly.”
• 107 •
RADCLY fFE
Deo raised her hand as if to take Nita’s, then let it fall. “Freak accidents happen. Most of the time you get a few bumps, a couple of scrapes, and you forget about it a minute later. I’m fi ne.”
“We’ll need to get that cleaned up and make sure you don’t need sutures.” Nita backed away, not wanting to think about the surge of panic she’d experienced when she thought Deo might have been seriously injured. It didn’t mean anything. She would have felt the same for anyone she was with.
“I want to fi nish going through the house.”
“Absolutely not,” Nita said with fi nality. “You’re already injured, plus you’re fi lthy. You need a shower and I need to look at your face.”
“I’m not going to get your house any dirtier than it already is, Nita.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You know what I’m talking about.”
“And we’re here now, and I just want a quick tour of the upper fl oors and a peek in the attic.” Deo turned Nita toward the stairs.
“Besides, the weather is supposed to clear tomorrow and I want to take a look under the eaves while it’s raining. The situation down here isn’t enough to hold up the closing, but if you’ve got a leaking roof, you want to know about it now.”
With a sigh, Nita started climbing. “Ten more minutes.”
“Twenty and you’ve got a deal.”
Against her better judgment, Nita agreed. Happily, the rest of the house was sound, and they reached the narrow stairway leading up to the widow’s walk without further incident. The sound of rain drumming on the roof was so loud, Nita was forced to lean close to Deo or shout.
“It’s pouring out there. You can save that for another day.”
“No way,” Deo said. “That’s one of the best parts of this house.
Besides, I need a shower. You can stay—”
“Let’s go then,” Nita grumped. Carefully, she negotiated the twisting stairs and waited on a small landing while Deo loosened yet another rusty latch and threw open the door that led out to the railed walkway that circled the highest portion of the roof. As she stepped out into the rainy night, she gasped.
“Oh my God,” Nita whispered. “It’s gorgeous.”
The town lay spread out below them, curving along the harbor.
Sailboats and yachts rocked in the harbor, their running lights sending skittering shafts of gold across the inky surface. Despite the rain, a half
• 108 •
Winds of Fortune
moon peeked from behind the cloud cover and cast its pale timeless glow over the scene. For an instant, Nita imagined herself a woman searching the sea night after night, waiting in the dark for her lover to return.
Deo watched Nita take it all in, struck by the way her features softened and a sad smile played across her mouth. She was every bit as beautiful as the night.
“Glad you came up here?” Deo asked quietly.
Nita turned. “Oh yes. I think I’ll come up here every night.”
“I don’t blame you. I would too.”
“Turn your face up to the sky,” Nita said, her throat suddenly thick.
Deo’s dark hair lay in tendrils over her cheeks and neck. Her body was silhouetted against the moonlit sky, strong and tight and powerful. Nita wanted to run her hands over her sculpted shoulders and down her bare arms. She wanted to slide her palms beneath the thin T-shirt and cup the soft swell of her barely perceptible breasts. She wanted, and the wanting felt good even though she knew there was no more basis to it than a primal urge programmed somewhere in the depths of her brain.
She hadn’t been able to resist touching Sylvia, and she had paid for that weakness with a huge part of her heart and soul. She would not make the same mistake again.
“What?” Deo asked, trying to decipher the look on Nita’s face.
For an instant she thought she had seen desire, but now she saw only sadness. Remarkably, it was the sadness that made her reach out more than the fl eeting desire.
Nita held up her hand and forestalled Deo’s motion. “Shower, remember? Tilt your head back and let the rain wash you clean.”
Wondering if it could really be that simple, Deo closed her eyes and surrendered to the storm.
❖
“Nelson,” Reese whispered. “You awake?”
Nelson Parker turned his head slowly on the pillow, clearly struggling to focus. His voice was raspy and faint when he spoke, a mere echo of his normally deep vibrant baritone. “Reese.”
Reese reached over the aluminum railings that separated her from him and rested her hand on his bare forearm. When he tried to raise his
• 109 •
RADCLY fFE
arm he could barely move it and his weakness struck her even more powerfully than seeing the tubes and other monitoring devices attached to and exiting his body. “How are you feeling?”
“Dog shit.”
“Yeah, I imagine.” Reese grinned and Nelson’s mouth fl ickered in a smile. “I won’t make it here before your surgery in the morning, so I’ll see you sometime tomorrow afternoon when you wake up.”
Nelson nodded almost imperceptibly. “Busy?”
“The usual.”
“Bri.”
Reese reached for the oversized Styrofoam container fi lled with water and positioned it so Nelson could reach the straw without lifting his head. She waited while he drank and then put the cup back on the narrow television table next to the bed.
“Lot to ask…” Nelson swallowed, and when he spoke again his voice was stronger. “Have to ask you to look after her if things don’t go well tomorrow.”
It never occurred to her to say anything other than the truth. To do anything less would be to deny him the respect he deserved. She knew he might die. So did he. It wasn’t dying that mattered, but how one did it. “I will. She’s strong, Nelson. She’ll be all right.”
“She here?”
“Can’t get her to stay away.” Reese grinned. “Between Tory and Caroline they’ve gotten her to go home a few times to shower and change her clothes.”
“Damn stubborn kid,” he said, his eyes shining.
“We love her. She’ll always have a home with us—both her and Caroline.” Reese squeezed his arm. “You don’t have to worry about her. What you need to do is everything you can to stick around for her.
That’s the mission.”
“Sounds easy.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard.” Reese slid her hand down until her fi ngers lay in Nelson’s palm. He closed his around hers. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Chief.”
“Roger.”
Reese walked out into the hall and found Bri waiting just outside the door. Caroline was with her, her hand tucked into the back pocket of Bri’s leather motorcycle pants. “Your dad needs to get a good night’s
• 110 •
Winds of Fortune
rest, so why don’t you say good night to him. You’ll see him in the morning.”
“Okay.” Bri’s voice was slightly unsteady.
“Tory says the surgery will make him stronger.” Reese briefl y clasped her shoulder. “That’s what he wants.”
“I know.” Bri glanced at Caroline. “You coming in with me?”
Caroline gave her a look. “Like I wouldn’t?” She kissed her cheek.
“What a blockhead.”
When they disappeared into Nelson’s room, Reese returned to the ICU waiting room and slumped onto the sofa next to Tory. It was only a little after nine p.m. and she shouldn’t be tired, but she was.
“Bri okay?” Tory asked, taking Reese’s hand.
“She’ll stand,” Reese replied.
“She’s scared.”
“Yes.” She raised their joined hands and brushed her lips over Tory’s. “But scared or not, she’ll be okay, because it’s not the fear that matters, but what you do about it.”
“Well, there’s not much more we can do here until tomorrow.”
Tory rose with Reese’s hand still in hers. At Reese’s look of surprise, she said, “And I need you tonight.”
Reese stood and eased her arm around Tory’s waist. “Let’s go home.”
• 111 •
• 112 •
Winds of Fortune
CHAPTER TWELVE
Follow me home,” Nita said, leaning into the open window of Deo’s truck. “I want to look at your face in decent light.”
“It’s nothing, I can tell.” Deo would have welcomed the invitation under other circumstances, but she didn’t want Nita viewing her as just another patient. Nita had been warm and relaxed with Joey at the clinic but had held herself back from everyone at the party that same night.
Even in the ICU a few nights ago, she hadn’t really been part of the group. It wasn’t hard to see that Nita was more comfortable relating to people from a professional distance, and distance wasn’t what Deo had in mind. “I’ve had worse.”
“That may be,” Nita insisted, “but it was my house that fell on your head, and I want to be sure you’re all right.”
“It’s not your responsibility.”
“Please,” Nita said softly.
Deo sighed and sagged back in surrender. “Jesus, and you call me relentless.”
Nita stepped back, smiling faintly. “I’m subletting a place in the East End across from Angel Market.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Deo said.
Less than ten minutes later, Deo parked in the empty lot beside the darkened gourmet grocery store and crossed the street to where Nita waited on the sidewalk. She followed her down a narrow gravel walkway between two buildings to the entrance of a familiar ground fl oor rear apartment. A small wooden deck led to sliding glass doors that opened into a compact kitchen. Nita turned on the light and Deo stepped inside.
“How do you like this apartment?” Deo asked.
“It’s great. The space isn’t that large, but it’s very well designed and they really thought of everything when they—what?” Nita asked as Deo grinned.
• 113 •
RADCLY fFE
“There’s no better recommendation than a satisfi ed customer.”
Deo slid her hands into her pockets and shrugged. “My crew renovated it. I did most of the design myself.”
“It’s very good work.”
“Like I said—no better reference. Since I’ve already done the inspection on your house, I can work up quotes for the renovation—”
“Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself?” Nita interrupted irritably. “I haven’t requested a job estimate from you yet.”
“Well, you will.”
“Oh, you think so.” Nita snorted. “Usually I like a confi dent woman, but you take entitlement to an extreme.”
“Are you saying I’m spoiled?” Deo teased.
“Aren’t you? When’s the last time anyone took serious issue with you?”
Nita’s criticism stung, and without thinking, Deo said, “Does getting thrown out of your own house at seventeen count?”
Immediately, Nita’s voice softened and she gently clasped Deo’s forearm. “What happened?”
Deo shrugged, wanting to change the subject, but the sympathy in Nita’s eyes and the tenderness of her touch seduced her into revealing more than she usually would with anyone, even a woman whose bed she shared—or hoped to. “My father beat me until I was half dead and then threw me out on the street.”
“Why?”
“Because I killed his only son.” Deo shoved the door open and strode out onto the deck. She was already halfway up the alley when Nita’s voice reached her.
“Deo, please don’t go. Deo?”
Enticed by the concern in Nita’s tone, Deo slowed but didn’t look back. The rain had let up until just a fi ne mist hung in the air. Moisture beaded on her cheeks like the memory of long-ago tears. “Look. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You don’t have to,” Nita said from very close behind her.
Deo shivered at the light touch on her shoulder.
“We all have our secrets,” Nita said quietly. “I’m sorry I forced you into revealing one of yours.”
“Usually women want to hear your secrets,” Deo said curiously,
• 114 •
Winds of Fortune
turning to face Nita in the semi darkness. “Isn’t that what intimacy is supposed to be all about? Sharing secrets?”
“Quite possibly,” Nita said steadily. “But I’m not interested in intimacy. I’m interested in looking at that laceration on your face.”
Deo smiled crookedly. “I’m really the perfect person for you to sleep with.”
Nita frowned. “I’m not even going to try to follow your logic.
Come back inside.”
“I’m not interested in intimacy either, and I won’t try to make you tell me your secrets,” Deo said as she fell into step beside Nita.
“I don’t have any secrets worth telling.”
“Sure you do,” Deo said softly. Nita might use her professional cloak and personal reserve to keep people at a distance, but Deo had caught glimpses of the tenderness and passion she tried to hide. Nita would not be alone unless someone had taught her that love was dangerous. But she was not the person to change Nita’s mind about that. They were alike that way, her and Nita—connection meant caring, and caring meant pain. “But like I said, I’m not pushing.”
Nita decided that ignoring her, as impossible as that was most of the time, was the best approach. “Follow me down to the bathroom.”
Nita directed Deo to sit on the closed commode while she retrieved antiseptic, steri-strips, and other supplies from a tall narrow cabinet next to the sink. Although well laid out with a spacious shower and vanity, the room was still small, and there wasn’t much space for them to maneuver around each other. As Nita bent down, Deo’s leg brushed her ass, and that brief unintentional caress shot straight through her.
Pretending she hadn’t gotten instantly wet, Nita stood and tilted Deo’s head up with her fi ngers beneath her chin. Deo’s skin was damp from the rain and the silky smoothness made her think of the way a woman’s body misted just before she came. This close, she could see the small gold fl ecks in Deo’s irises, and she imagined the way they would darken and swirl just before…
“Close your eyes,” Nita said hoarsely.
Once released from the hypnotic pull of Deo’s gaze, Nita used a cotton swab to clean the laceration that paralleled Deo’s hairline.
Concentrating on the familiar task helped her ignore the buzzing in the pit of her stomach. She brushed Deo’s wet tangled hair away from the
• 115 •
RADCLY fFE
cut and resisted the urge to run her fi ngers through it. “The laceration is long, but not too deep.”
“Told you that,” Deo said, automatically spreading her legs so that Nita could get close enough to work. The solution Nita swabbed on the cut stung, but that sensation was quickly obliterated by her awareness of Nita’s body almost resting against hers. The insides of her thighs rubbed against Nita’s legs and a wave of heat shot through her. She couldn’t tell if the torrent of warmth was coming from inside her body or from Nita, but she was aware that the fi ngers on her face had stopped moving.
Deo opened her eyes and found Nita staring at her, and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind as to what she saw in Nita’s eyes. Slowly, carefully, she slipped her hands around Nita’s body and cupped her hips. When Nita didn’t draw way, she gently pulled her closer until Nita’s crotch nestled against her belly. She was suddenly so hot and so hard she thought she would explode, but she held absolutely still. Some sixth sense warned her that Nita must make the fi rst move.
“Let go,” Nita whispered as the heat from Deo’s body fl ooded hers. She couldn’t step away, not with Deo’s hands on her.
“You don’t want me to do that,” Deo murmured.
“I do,” Nita insisted, knowing it was herself she was trying to convince. Deo’s breasts rose and fell quickly and her nipples had tightened beneath the still damp T-shirt. Entirely against her own volition, Nita’s fi ngers crept around the back of Deo’s neck and spread through her hair. With a soft groan, Deo pressed her face against Nita’s stomach. The top of her head glanced over Nita’s nipples, and Nita trembled with another wave of arousal. She had very little time. Deo’s breath against the thin fabric of her blouse seared her skin and she wanted Deo’s mouth roaming over her body. She would burn for her, she knew, igniting beneath Deo’s hands until all that remained was ashes. She would never survive the inferno again.
Eyes closed, lips parted, Deo moaned against Nita’s stomach.
“Nita, please. I need to touch you.”
Trembling, Nita gathered all her strength and pushed away. “You have to go.”
Deo dropped her hands onto her thighs, palms up, her fi ngers curved in supplication. Panting, she nodded wordlessly.
• 116 •
Winds of Fortune
Surprised but grateful, Nita took another step back. Amazingly, her voice sounded almost normal. “Keep that cut covered while you’re working. It should be fi ne.”
“Right,” Deo said, rising unsteadily to her feet. “Thank you.”
Unable to look away from Deo’s fl ushed face, Nita reached behind her for the bathroom door and pulled it open. Then she pressed against it so Deo could pass. She was careful that their bodies did not touch.
Like an automaton, she followed Deo to the kitchen and watched her wrench open the glass doors. A breeze smelling of sea and summer rain wafted through the kitchen. A fl eeting image of the two of them naked, lying before an open window making love until dawn while the fresh clear air washed the past away, skittered through her mind.
“I’m sorry,” Nita said softly.
“For what?” Deo’s breathing was ragged.
“I shouldn’t have touched you.”
“Does it make any difference that I wanted you to?”
Nita shook her head. “None at all.”
“I’m leaving because you want me to,” Deo said, “not because I want to.”
“I’m grateful.”
“Don’t thank me,” Deo said harshly. “Next time I won’t be as accommodating.”
“Please go. This won’t happen again.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Deo stepped outside, closed the door, and disappeared.
Wrapping her arms around her middle, Nita leaned against the counter and wondered how things had gotten so out of control so quickly. Then she tried to tell herself it could have been worse. Deo might have awakened her libido, but thankfully she still had control of her common sense. She hadn’t been with anyone since Sylvia. In the months since, she had so ruthlessly crushed her desire, so completely disavowed her own need, that she was rarely aware of sexual desire.
She hadn’t even masturbated since she had fi nally purged her system of wanting Sylvia every moment of the day and night. Now a pulse beat heavily, insistently, between her thighs, and she knew she would come with the lightest touch.
The pressure was nearly unbearable, but she wouldn’t satisfy
• 117 •
RADCLY fFE
herself, not when she wasn’t sure whose face she would see as she orgasmed. Sylvia or Deo? Was either any safer than the other?
❖
Too agitated to go home to silence, Deo walked. Driven by the churning in her stomach and the hot thrum of need coursing through her blood, she didn’t notice passing faces or register the occasional bump on her shoulder as she threaded her way through slow moving clumps of casual strollers. Over the years, she’d learned to recognize lust in all its various guises—mindless, playful, urgent, detached. She’d made love to women who were so insatiable she’d nearly dropped from exhaustion before they’d had enough. Strangers had fucked her in the dark until she couldn’t remember her own name. Never once had she seen a look of such undisguised hunger and desperate vulnerability as she’d seen on Nita’s face tonight. It was plain to see that Nita wanted her and feared her in equal measure, and knowing that twisted her up like a giant claw ripping at her insides.
Rebelling at the idea that Nita expected her to hurt her, Deo strode faster. Her body was in rebellion too, adrenaline pumping, her loins pounding with lust and need. She wanted to pour her longing and loneliness into a woman’s body. Even more than she wanted to come herself, she wanted a woman coming beneath her, crying out in ecstasy.
The blaring sound of a car horn brought her up short, and she jumped out of the way of the car she’d walked in front of. Shaking her head, she focused on her surroundings for the fi rst time and saw that she was in front of the Vixen, one of the hot spots for lesbians on the prowl. It wouldn’t take long to fi nd a woman in there to empty herself into, or she could call Allie. Allie gladly took what she had to give, and because of that, she could relax enough to let Allie pleasure her. If she didn’t fi nd release, she would never be able to sleep. Her head and her groin were in a race to see which would detonate fi rst.
Stranger or friend. Which should she choose, which should she use?
With a sigh, she crossed diagonally to the Squealing Pig and pushed through the door.
• 118 •
Winds of Fortune
“Beer,” she said tersely to the bartender. With any luck, she could drink the edge off and forget who she really wanted to fuck.
❖
“Let’s go to bed,” Tory said, sliding her arms around Reese’s waist from behind as Reese gently lay Reggie into her crib and tucked the covers around her.
Straightening, Reese turned and kissed Tory’s forehead. “Good idea.”
Tory took Reese’s hand and led her across the hall and closed the bedroom door behind them. Once inside there was only moonlight to guide them, but after the rain had stopped, the wind had blown the clouds away and the night was bright enough to see by. She unclipped Reese’s tie and laid it on the dresser just inside the door. Then she began unbuttoning her shirt.
“Have I ever mentioned how much I love to undress you?” Tory murmured.
“Once or twice.” Reese said thickly, reaching down to gently tug Tory’s blouse from her jeans.
“It’s the fi rst time all week we’ll actually be going to bed together.”
Tory pushed Reese’s shirt off and let it fall, then pulled up her T-shirt.
Reese obliged by raising her arms and Tory stripped her. Her silhouette in the moonlight was a breathtaking combination of hard planes and subtle curves, her body almost too sharply honed. Tory brushed her hands over Reese’s chest, lingering on the subtle swell of her breasts.
“God, you’re beautiful.”
Reese trembled, her breath coming faster. “It’s late and you’ll need to leave early to get back to the hospital in the morning.”
“I know what time it is.” Tory trailed her fi ngers slowly down Reese’s stomach to her fl y and opened her pants. Hooking both thumbs around the waistband and catching Reese’s briefs in the same grip, she pushed them down. “Kick off your shoes.”
“Tory,” Reese whispered, an edge of uncertainty in her voice.
Kneeling, Tory worked Reese’s clothing off one leg and then the other until she was nude. Then she leaned forward and pressed her face against Reese’s abdomen, encircling her hips with both arms. She
• 119 •
RADCLY fFE
kissed the base of her stomach and ran her hands lightly over Reese’s ass. “You can’t know how much I missed you. Even with you home again, it catches me in the middle of the day. This ache I have for you.”
She tilted her chin up but she couldn’t see Reese’s expression, only the distant shadow of her face. “I need you inside me tonight.”
Reese groaned quietly and cupped Tory’s face with both hands.
“Baby, I’m not sure…”
Tory rubbed her cheek over the soft delta between Reese’s legs and pressed a kiss to her center. Then she rose and wrapped her arms around Reese’s neck. “Don’t be afraid.”
“When…when I touch you I feel like I’m running, running for my life and you’re all that can save me.”
“You’re not lost, darling.” Tory guided Reese’s hand to her breast.
“And I’m right here.”
Shaking, Reese kissed her tenderly, with infi nite care, and slowly unbuttoned her blouse. She reached one hand behind and released Tory’s bra as Tory skimmed off her jeans and panties. With her mouth against Tory’s neck, Reese circled her waist and pushed her toward the bed. Tory went down on her back and Reese followed, her thigh between Tory’s legs. Her voice was hoarse and tight. “Here with you like this, I know who I am.”
“Then be with me. You can’t hurt me.” Tory shifted until Reese was between her legs and then hooked her calves over Reese’s thighs.
She kissed her, drawing Reese’s tongue into her mouth, and rocked her hips in invitation.
Reese gave herself to the heat of Tory’s mouth and the call of her body. When she felt her control slip and the choking need that verged on desperation surging through her, she tried to pull away, but Tory only held her more fi ercely.
“Don’t go,” Tory whispered, cradling the back of Reese’s head in one hand and grasping Reese’s wrist with the other. She pushed Reese’s hand between them, down over her belly. “Be with me. Be in me. I need you.”
“I love you,” Reese gasped, sliding into her, submerging herself in the solace only Tory could provide. “Tory. Tory.”
“Always…” Tory arched to take her deeper. “Always right here.”
Reese pushed Tory to the edge, thrust after thrust, until she was about to crest, and then grew still inside her. When Tory cried out,
• 120 •
Winds of Fortune
imploring her not to stop, Reese whispered, “I will never leave you.”
While Tory trembled on the brink, Reese slid down the bed and took her into her mouth. As Tory came, she grasped Reese’s free hand and their fi ngers entwined.
Tory held her inside as long as she could, and continued to hold her hand after Reese slipped from her and lay panting with her cheek pillowed against Tory’s stomach. Tory traced the wedding band on Reese’s fi nger while she stroked Reese’s face, thinking about her promise to love and cherish.
“I wish I could give you everything you need,” Tory whispered.
“You give me more.” Reese moved up the bed to take Tory into her arms. She cradled Tory’s head against her shoulder and kissed her.
“You give me things I never knew I needed. More than I ever dreamed of having.”
“Sometimes I feel selfi sh.”
“No.” Reese sighed. “You aren’t. You never have been. It’s me.”
Tory raised her head. “You know what? Our life has been upside down since April, and this week has been really hard.” She kissed Reese fi rmly. “I’ll give myself a break if you’ll do the same.”
Reese laughed. “Is this like a timeout for grown-ups?”
“Something like that.” Tory ran her fi ngers through Reese’s hair, then curled up against her again. “We’re together, and we always will be, no matter where either of us may be. For now, that’s all that matters.”
“That’s everything.” Reese pulled the covers over them and held her tightly. “I’ll see you in the morning, baby.”
Holding to that promise, Tory fell asleep to the sound of Reese’s heartbeat.
• 121 •
• 122 •
Winds of Fortune
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Oh man,” Bri moaned, curling onto her side as she reached down to caress Carre’s face with trembling fi ngers. Her head still buzzed from waking up in the middle of an orgasm. “Babe, what are you doing?”
“Making you feel good.”
“Why aren’t you asleep?”
“Because I woke up and I thought about us being at the hospital all week and that we’ll probably be there most of the weekend, and I wanted to take care of you.” Caroline rubbed her cheek against Bri’s belly. “You wouldn’t let me last night, remember?”
Bri combed her fi ngers through Carre’s hair. “I didn’t think I could come. I’ve been so twisted up all week, I wasn’t even horny.”
“You didn’t think you were.” Caroline scooted up on the bed and pulled Bri’s head against her breasts. “But baby, you’re always horny.
Besides, it’s good for you. It always relaxes you.”
“Is that what you call it?” Bri closed her eyes briefl y and pretended that it was just the two of them together with nowhere to go and nothing to fear. But she could only hold on to the dream for a few seconds.
“What time is it?”
“Four thirty, about. It’s still dark outside.” Caroline rubbed Bri’s shoulders. “We should leave in about an hour. You go ahead and sleep some more. I’ll wake you up.”
“Don’t know if I can.”
“You okay?”
Wordlessly, Bri nodded, tightening her grip on Carre. She’d been in scary situations a few times at work—the fi re, the shootout in the dunes, the drug bust that went bad. She’d been scared, sure, but even that night when she’d been dragged into the brush and beaten, she hadn’t felt this powerless. She’d always fought back. “I think something bad might happen, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
• 123 •
RADCLY fFE
“Remember what your dad said last night. That he wasn’t going to worry about you because he knew you were strong.”
“Yeah,” Bri mumbled.
“Being strong doesn’t mean you can’t be scared.” Caroline tilted Bri’s face up and kissed her eyes, then her cheeks, then her mouth.
“And you don’t have to be strong all the time, baby.”
“Oh fuck,” Bri blurted as the tears came and she couldn’t stop them. Carre rocked her and made soft little sounds of comfort, and Bri clung to her like she couldn’t ever remember holding on to anyone before. Maybe she had, when she was little—before her mother died, before the house grew silent and her father so sad—but she couldn’t remember. Then she was a teenager and she was fi ghting everyone because she was different, and everywhere she turned someone said she couldn’t be who she was, and she had to be strong because Carre risked so much in loving her. And now—now she was grown, and she wanted to be strong like Reese was strong—strong and brave no matter what happened. But she didn’t feel strong.
“I don’t know…” Bri gulped and willed herself to stop crying. “I don’t know how I’d make it if I didn’t have you.”
“Oh baby,” Caroline murmured, stroking Bri’s hot, damp face.
“Don’t you know by now I need you to need me? Just like I need you.”
She kissed her forehead. “You are such a blockhead sometimes.”
“I’m trying so hard, but I’m never going to be like Reese.” When Carre drew back, there was enough morning light fi ltering through the skylight in their second fl oor apartment that Bri could make out the frown on her face. “What?”
“Do you think Reese is strong all the time?” Caroline shook her head. “Don’t you get that part of the reason Reese seems so strong is because she has Tory? Jeez, all you have to do is watch them.”
Bri remembered waking up in the ICU waiting room and seeing Tory holding Reese. Comforting her, pretty much like Carre was doing now. Thinking that Reese wouldn’t want anyone to see her so vulnerable, she had looked away. She hadn’t wanted to embarrass Reese, but maybe she had been wrong in thinking that she would. She wasn’t ashamed to have Carre hold her. She just felt lucky.
“How come you know these things and I don’t?” Bri complained, rubbing her face against the inside of her arm to wipe away the last of her tears.
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Winds of Fortune
Caroline laughed. “Because we’re made differently and different things are important to us.”
Bri frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“I know, baby,” Caroline said gently. “It doesn’t matter as long as you know that I don’t always need you to be strong and I need to feel strong for you too sometimes.”
“If anything happens to my dad I don’t want anybody around except you.” Bri took Carre’s hand. The tears were close again. “Okay?”
“Reese and Tory love you, baby.” Caroline kissed Bri until Bri relaxed into her arms. “I’ll be right there, I promise. But you can’t shut them out.”
“Thank you for…you know. Being with me.”
“You’re gonna make me mad if you say that again.” Caroline pulled Bri on top of her and held her tightly. “There’s only one thing I want you to say to me. You know what it is.”
Bri rested her forehead against Carre’s and whispered, “I love you so so much.”
❖
“You made it,” Nita exclaimed as Tory hurried into the offi ce at just after three in the afternoon. “You’d better sit down. You look exhausted.”
“I only slept a few hours last night, but I actually felt rested when I woke up this morning.” Tory dropped onto the sofa with a grateful sigh.
“It’s just been a tense day.”
Nita frowned. “Problems with Nelson’s surgery?”
“He came through the procedure with no major problems, but the surgeon said he saw a little more bleeding post-op than he’d like.
They’re just watching him for now.”
“Maybe you should head back, then.”
Tory shook her head. “There are some things I have to do here.
Reese will be there in an hour or so. We’ve got it covered.” She pointed a fi nger at Nita. “Besides, you have a closing to go to. So—go.”
“You’re sure.”
“Positive. Call me later.”
Nita shrugged off her lab coat, hung it on a coat tree inside the door, and grabbed the soft brown leather shoulder bag that doubled as
• 125 •
RADCLY fFE
her briefcase. Murmuring her thanks, she hurried out.
The few moments it took to drive into town were the fi rst free minutes she’d had all day. Unfortunately, the fi rst thing she thought of was Deo. There was no reason to think that Deo would be at the closing, for which she was glad. A day or two without seeing her would put everything into perspective. She was only temporarily off-balance because she hadn’t expected to meet anyone who stirred her up the way Deo had. Nothing to worry about.
So, she’d met an attractive charming sexy woman who had turned her on. So what? So what if she’d tossed and turned for an hour the night before, too keyed up to sleep, unable to purge the memory of Deo’s warm breath against her stomach from her mind. So what if she’d awakened for the fi rst time in months with a hum of arousal singing through her blood. All perfectly normal, perfectly natural. No crime in acknowledging involuntary responses she had no plans to do anything about.
Case closed.
❖
“How does it feel to be a homeowner?” Elana Torres asked, handing Nita the keys with a warm smile.
“Wonderful,” Nita replied automatically, and on one level, she was thrilled. The house had charmed her from the beginning with its history and faded grandeur, and she looked forward to restoring it. The project would occupy her free time, what little of it there was, and in the end, she would have something exceptional of her own to show for it. But undercutting the excitement was a thread of sadness that she was doing this alone. Her fi rst home, a signifi cant dream realized, and she had no one special with whom to share the pleasure.
Elana handed Nita a thick manila envelope. “Deo asked me to give this to you. She said to tell you the renovation estimates just cover the major structural elements. The fi nishing details take more planning, depending on what you have in mind.”
“I, uh…” Nita stared at the envelope but didn’t take it. She had the irrational thought that if she touched it she might feel the rough brush of Deo’s callused palm over her body and give herself away with some small movement or sound.
• 126 •
Winds of Fortune
“Deo’s family, as you know, but I can also recommend her without reservation,” Elana added. “Still, I put contact information for one of the other local contractors and a company from Barnstable in with your settlement papers in case you want to get competitive bids.”
“Yes. I suppose that would be a good idea.”
“Call soon. At this time of the year, everyone is booked solid. I’ll do what I can to help set up the appraisals, if you like.”
Of course, Nita thought, summertime is the height of the building season. But Deo had taken the time to write up the estimate. She wondered when. “Deo put this together awfully quickly.”
“She was in here crunching numbers when I arrived at six this morning.” Elana smiled. “She’s never been one to let grass grow under her feet.”
Nita stifl ed a comment about fast workers and accepted the envelope. It could take weeks to even schedule an appraisal with someone else, and longer still to get the renovations started. And somehow, she didn’t think that Deo’s comment about being one of the best in the business was an idle boast. Her own sublet was proof of that. Annoyed that she was allowing a transient situation with Deo to compromise what should be a professional undertaking, she asked, “Do you have local references I can check? She’s already seen the house, and—”
“Deo always includes references at the end of her estimates. If you need any other information, just call me. Most of the businesses in town use her, and there’s never been a single complaint.”
Blushing, Nita said hastily, “Really, I’m sure she’s excellent. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”
“Don’t think anything of it,” Elana said. “It’s an important decision, and I’m sure you want to have the right person do the work.”
“Yes. I do. Well,” Nita bounced the keys in her palm. “I think I’ll pay my new house a visit.”
“Welcome to town.” Elana extended her hand. “Call me if you need anything. Remember, you’re one of us now.”
❖
One of us. Nita leaned against the balustrade on the widow’s walk and surveyed the harbor from atop her new home. With still two hours
• 127 •
RADCLY fFE
until sunset, the evening had taken on a golden blush, and the white sailboats and yachts fl oated like pristine clouds atop the deep blue surface of the water. So high above the street, the breeze was cool and brisk, raising goose bumps on her sun-heated skin. One of us.
She could still hear her brother’s angry words. “How could you, Nita? He’s one of us. You don’t fuck with one of us.”
She hadn’t needed her brother’s fury or her father’s cold disdain or her sister’s shocked criticism to understand that the thin blue line was unassailable. She’d known it all her life. Every member of her family took pride in it, and she had broken the line. Ignored the code, disrespected the fraternity, sullied the family honor. She was no longer one of them, cast out for her transgressions.
“All for what,” she murmured for the thousandth time, but she knew the answer. Sylvia. Beautiful passionate, possessive Sylvia.
Sylvia, with her hot demanding hands and her sweet seductive mouth.
Sylvia. God, she could still taste her.
“Hey!” Deo yelled up from the street. “Don’t lean on that!”
Shaking her head, feeling as if she were awakening from a dream, Nita stared down the three and a half stories to the sidewalk. Deo stood with her legs apart and pelvis tilted forward, hands on hips, glaring up at her. Despite the height, Nita could make out streaks of dust on her neck and the sweat that sheened on her bare arms. In an instant, memories of Sylvia disappeared and Nita was grateful.
Recognizing the gratitude for what it was, the mindless substitution of one desire for another, she defi antly grasped the iron railing and shook it. Despite the protesting creak she heard as she rocked it, she shouted back, “It’s perfectly fi ne.”
“Cut it out! Jesus, Nita.” Deo shoved open the scrolled iron gate that separated Nita’s small front yard from the narrow brick sidewalk and stalked toward the house.
Nita lost sight of her, but she didn’t have any trouble hearing her.
“Let me in,” Deo barked.
For one second, Nita considered ignoring her. Then, embarrassed by her reluctance to confront a woman just because she was attracted to her, she abandoned her perch above the town and unhurriedly made her way downstairs. When she opened the door, she felt completely calm.
“Yes?” Nita said.
“Jesus Christ, Nita,” Deo repeated heatedly. “Do you want to kill
• 128 •
Winds of Fortune
yourself? You’ve got to be careful around this place until we’ve gone through it completely.”
“There is no we,” Nita responded levelly. “And I was careful.”
“Leaning over that railing is not careful! If you had fallen…” Deo tried to rein in her temper, but she was still running on nerves after glancing up to see Nita precariously positioned on the widow’s walk, a look on her face that said she was a million miles away and not paying any attention to what she was doing. Deo envisioned the bolts pulling loose from the water-softened wood, the railing crumbling, and Nita falling. Falling and lying crumpled on the grass, her eyes open and empty. She shivered. “Fuck.”
“I appreciate your concern.” Recognizing Deo’s anxiety—
surprised and oddly touched—Nita asked more gently, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m working a job not far from here, and I fi gured you might stop by here after the closing.” Deo shrugged. “I thought we could get a look at the place while it was still light and talk about the work schedule.”
Nita tried to suppress a smile and almost succeeded. “I don’t remember accepting your proposal.”
Catching the smile, Deo leaned against the door frame, her fear and anger giving way to pleasure at the slight chink in Nita’s formidable armor. “Did you look at it?”
“Yes.” In fact, it was the fi rst thing she had done when she arrived at the house. She’d walked through the dusty, barren rooms studying Deo’s notes, imagining the ornate ceilings restored, the woodwork and fl oors sanded and refi nished, the wainscoting and scrolled chair rails replaced. “I still need to call your references.”
“Don’t trust me?” Deo teased.
“Not a whit.”
“Going to let me in?”
No, Nita’s common sense screamed. No. No no no. Reminding herself it was a simple business transaction, she stepped back. “I can’t live here without plumbing and electricity.”
“You need a kitchen.”
“I can live very well on take out.”
“For food, maybe. What about coffee in the morning?” Deo followed Nita down the wide central hall, admiring the way Nita’s rear fi lled out her navy slacks. Her cream colored blouse was the perfect
• 129 •
RADCLY fFE
complement to her coffee complexion, and Deo thought once again how beautiful she was.
“By the way, I think you missed something,” Nita said.
“Impossible.”
When Nita stopped abruptly and turned, Deo almost bumped into her. They were so close she could smell Nita’s earthy fl oral perfume.
Her stomach tightened in the way it did when she was getting hard, and she shuddered with the unexpected surge of arousal.
Nita nearly recoiled at the sexual charge pouring from Deo’s body.
The force of Deo’s attraction was so tangible she expected to see it materialize, a beast clawing its way to freedom and hunting her down.
But rather than run, there was a beast of her own straining to charge back—aching for the frenzy of mating that left only wreckage in its wake.
“There’s a water mark on the ceiling under the stairs,” Nita said hoarsely, pointing back over Deo’s shoulder. “It’s not on your report.
You probably couldn’t see it the other night.”
Swallowing, forcing down the urge to grab Nita and kiss her the way she’d wanted to kiss her the night before, Deo looked where Nita indicated. Frowning, she pulled her jackknife from her pants pocket and scraped at the plaster in the stairwell. When it fl aked away, she pressed her fi ngertip to the small gouge. It was dry. “An old leak. They probably fi xed it but never bothered to repair this. Good pickup.”
“Thanks. So,” Nita said, backing up a step. “Want to fi nish the tour?”
“Sure.” Deo didn’t move. Neither did Nita. What about me, Nita?
Want to fi nish me? Just a kiss, just a touch. I’ve been ready since last night.
“Assuming your references check out—”
“They will.”
“Assuming they do,” Nita said fi rmly, “when can you start?”
“It will take a few days to get materials lined up. Sometime next week.”
“How long before I can move in?”
Deo shrugged. “Can’t tell until I see what kind of surprises we fi nd. There are always surprises with this kind of job.”
“Ballpark.”
• 130 •
Winds of Fortune
“It depends on if you’re willing to rough it or not.”
“I don’t need pampering.”
“But do you like it?” Deo asked softly.
“A condition for you doing this job,” Nita went on steadily, “is that you cease your pointless fl irting.”
“Do you want that in the contract?”
Nita laughed and shook her head ruefully. “How good is your word?”
“I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
“Then your word will do.”
Deo shook her head. “Sorry, I can’t oblige.”
“Why?” Nita asked, half aggravated and half intrigued.
“You know why.”
Nita’s pulse pounded as if Deo’s hands skimmed her body. She didn’t bother denying the attraction. They’d both know she was lying.
“I forgot,” Nita said. “It’s second nature to you.”
“I don’t mind if you want to pretend that’s all it is.” Deo regarded Nita seriously. “No more exploring this place by yourself, especially once we start working. I’ll meet you at any time and take you through personally.”
“That won’t be necessary. But I appreciate it.”
“Consider it part of the service.” Deo grinned.
“Come on, let’s fi nish up.” Nita turned away, refusing to allow herself to succumb to the lure of Deo’s attraction. “I’ll call you when I’ve made a decision.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
The words, even though she knew they were empty, sent a ripple of pleasure through Nita’s core. She was so aroused she knew that denying herself release tonight was not going to be possible, and she didn’t know whether to rejoice or repent.
• 131 •
• 132 •
Winds of Fortune
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Hi,” Allie said breathlessly as she rushed into the waiting room and kissed Bri on the cheek. At nine p.m. on Saturday night, the waiting room was nearly empty. “Sorry I didn’t make it yesterday—
hi Caroline—we had a three car pileup on Six last night that took us hours to sort out—how’s the chief?”
“Pretty good,” Bri said. “He still has that breathing tube in so he can’t say anything, but he blinks when I talk to him so I know he’s okay.”
Allie dropped into one of the dark green vinyl chairs and let her arms fl op over the sides. She’d changed out of her uniform into low-cut jeans and a scooped neck short-sleeved cotton top that came just to her bellybutton, and it felt great not to be working for a few hours. “That’s good. Everybody’s asking for him. Tell him that, okay?”
“I will. You didn’t need to drive all the way up here, you know.
You called yesterday after the surgery.”
“I know, but…” Allie blushed and glanced at Caroline, who stood with one hip cocked against Bri’s and her arm around Bri’s waist. The possessive stance wasn’t conscious, but Allie got the message just the same. “It feels like we’re more than just people who work together, you know?”
Bri nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
Caroline kissed Bri’s cheek and stepped away. “I’m going downstairs to get us something to drink, baby. Allie, you want something?”
“No. Thanks. I’m not going to stay that long.”
“Okay. Back in a few.”
“Got a date?” Bri perched on the wide arm of Allie’s chair and braced an arm against the back.
“Ha. I wish.” Allie leaned back to look up, her cheek nearly
• 133 •
RADCLY fFE
touching Bri’s hand where it rested on the vinyl. “I don’t have anything lined up, and if I did, I think I’d be too tired to do anything about it.”
“What about Deo?”
“Oh yeah. Deo.” Allie eyed Bri. “So much has happened this week I forgot you were bent out of shape about her. What gives?”
“I asked you fi rst.”
Allie lifted a shoulder and gave Bri a lazy smile. “She’s hot. I mean like touch me and I go off like a bomb hot.”
Bri rolled her eyes. “I kinda got that from watching her feel you up on the street in front of Spiritus.”
“She wasn’t and so what if she was?”
“That’s a low-life move. You’re too good for her.”
“You don’t even know her, and for your information, she refused to fuck me on the street when I asked her to.” Allie sighed in exasperation.
“We’re fucking, Bri. She’s fun to be with, and she makes me come like there’s no tomorrow. End of story.”
“Deo’s got a rep for never staying around long, so just…be cool, okay?”
Allie sat forward and rested her hand on Bri’s knee. “Listen, stud, I know what I’m doing, okay? But thanks.”
“I’m coming back to work on Monday,” Bri said.
“Yeah?” Allie brightened. “That would be great. Are you sure?”
“As long as my dad is still doing okay, I want to. I don’t feel right just sitting around here. Especially with how busy all the rest of you are covering for me, and Reese doing double duty with my dad out.”
Allie squeezed Bri’s hand. “You should be here. Everyone understands.”
Bri grinned and shook Allie’s hand playfully. “What’s the matter?
Don’t you miss me?”
“Oh yeah,” Allie laughed. “I really miss you bitchin’ about me being late and complaining about who I fuck.”
From the doorway, Caroline said wryly, “That’s a sign she likes you.” She crossed the room and held out sodas to both Allie and Bri. “I got you one Allie, just in case.”
“Thanks.” Allie released Bri’s hand and took the bottle. “I haven’t been out of my uniform all week and it’s time to go dancing. I’ll drink this in the car on my way home.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know if I’m coming in for
• 134 •
Winds of Fortune
sure,” Bri said to Allie as she hooked a fi nger through the belt loop on Caroline’s jeans.
“Okay. See you.” Allie waved and hurried out.
As she took the stairs down to the lobby, she twisted off the top of her soda and pulled down a long swallow. Nice of Caroline to bring it—nice of Caroline to put up with her creaming over Bri, too. Jesus that was embarrassing, especially since she knew Caroline knew, even if half the time Bri was clueless. Girls always knew these things.
She was tired. Tired of working. Tired of walking on eggshells around Bri, never knowing when she’d look at her and want her in ways she shouldn’t. Tired of wishing the women she slept with were more than bed partners. And so damn tired of wishing Ashley would call her.
With a mental snarl, she fl ung herself into the car, keyed the ignition, and tore out of the parking lot. None of that was going to change tonight, and there was nothing wrong with a little company to take her mind off what bothered her.
❖
Nita was restless. For the fi rst day in a week and a half, she hadn’t worked. Tory had insisted she take the weekend off. Feeling at loose ends all day, she’d been painfully reminded of just how little connection she had established in her new community, and how much she had allowed work to take the place of pleasure in her life. Determined to change that, she’d walked through town to her new house, and the sun and the enthusiasm of the crowds and the breathtaking glimpses of the harbor that teased her through the narrow alleyways between buildings had banished some of her discontent.
Once at the house, she’d immediately lost herself in the excitement of imagining how it would look when it was restored. Even when she realized she was making mental notes of things she wanted to discuss with Deo, far from being derailed, her anticipation grew. Buoyed by the uncharacteristic surge of happiness, she extracted the estimate from the manila envelope she had left lying on the counter in the kitchen the day before and impulsively dialed the phone number on the report. She got an answering machine, which was what she expected, and left a message accepting the proposal.
• 135 •
RADCLY fFE
Now, ten hours later, she wondered if she’d made a mistake encouraging a situation where she’d see Deo regularly. Especially, she thought with a whisper of chagrin, after the night before. She had been so keyed up, so physically agitated, she’d fi nally relented and made herself come. It hadn’t taken much, either time, just a few long fi rm strokes and a little teasing pressure and the orgasms burst inside her like a rocket fl air, brilliant and bright. And as she moaned and twisted, she’d felt Deo’s hot breath against her skin.
Nita twitched and stared at the book in her lap. She had no idea how long she’d been sitting in her living room, replaying the events of the day. Urgency coiled in her depths and she knew she was wet. She needed a diversion or she was going to have to masturbate, and she feared anything she could do was not going to be enough to satisfy. She had hoped to smother the consuming need she had to take and be taken by denying it, but instead, she’d only stoked the fury.
“Enough,” she muttered, surging to her feet. She needed to hear voices other than those in her head or she was going to go crazy. She’d walk, even though walking was not what her body craved.
❖
Deo pushed the whiskey glass back and forth on the bar in a slow half circle, back and forth, back and forth, replaying the message in her mind.
“Deo, hello. It’s Nita Burgoyne. I’ve decided to accept your proposal. Call me and let me know when you can get started.”
She’d rewound the tape and played it fi ve or six times in succession, feeling foolish as her belly churned and heated at the sound of Nita’s voice. Mentally, she edited the tape. “Deo, it’s Nita. Call me.”
“Pathetic,” Deo muttered. She had never mooned over a woman this way, not even when she was a teenager. She’d always had plenty of interest in sex, but there was never anyone she had to have. Never anyone whose voice she hungered to hear on the phone or whose face she desperately sought in the crowd.
At sixteen, she had just been fi guring out that she wanted girls, and only girls. By seventeen, she had kissed more than a few and managed a couple of fast fumbles under the pier, and then her life had blown apart. Literally. And then all she wanted was to forget. Quick
• 136 •
Winds of Fortune
couplings in the dark, lots of them, had worked for a while. If it hadn’t been for Pia standing by her, and Pia’s parents giving her a place to live until she could manage on her own, she might not have made it.
Eventually, she’d worn the edge off her pain and wounded rage and, by eighteen, had settled into a rhythm of one night stands and friendly but emotionless encounters. When her father, at her mother’s insistence, had offered to help her get started in business, she had wanted to refuse.
But Pia had urged her to accept for the sake of their families.
Hasn’t everyone suffered enough? Pia had said, and Deo swallowed her pride and accepted his help and within two years had paid back every penny. Now they had an uneasy truce. She didn’t spend much time around him, and if he started drinking, she left before his festering anger bubbled to the surface.
Her life worked, even if now and then she had the uneasy sense there should be more. Then Nita came along and disrupted the pattern she’d gotten used to. At fi rst meeting, she’d responded to Nita with her hormones, just as she always did, and Nita’s automatic dismissal had been a pleasant challenge. But it wasn’t the challenge of conquest that kept her interested. Every time they were together, even for a few minutes, she caught glimpses of the deep passion and pain that Nita struggled to hide. Those emotions she knew something about, and that’s what intrigued her most of all.
“Hey, hot stuff,” Allie purred, wrapping her arms around Deo’s neck and pressing up against her back. She kissed her ear. “How you doing?”
Deo shifted on the bar stool and kissed Allie lightly on the mouth.
“Not bad. You?”
“I’m better now.” Allie skimmed her hand down Deo’s back and curled her fi ngers beneath the waistband of Deo’s jeans. Then she leaned over the bar and waved at the bartender. “Georgia, honey! Please give me a beer before I die.”
“Rough day?” Deo asked.
“Rough week.” Allie twisted sideways in the narrow space between Deo’s stool and the occupied one next to it and snuggled her crotch against Deo’s thigh. “We’re shorthanded. Tourist season. The usual. The chief is doing okay, though.”
“That’s great.” Deo tipped the contents of her glass down her throat and then held out the empty toward the bartender, who slid a
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sweating bottle of Molson’s across the bar to Allie. “Fill me up.”
“So,” Allie said after taking a swallow of her beer. “I could really get into fucking for the rest of the night. Interested?”
Grinning ruefully, Deo wrapped both arms around Allie’s waist and leaned her forehead against Allie’s. No excuses. No lies. Not with her. “I don’t think I’m there tonight, babe.”
Allie leaned back, her pelvis still pressed to Deo’s leg, and regarded her with a frown. “You okay?”
“I don’t know.” Deo shrugged. “Maybe I’m just tired.”
“You know, there’s nothing like a really good fuck to make you forget all the shit in your life.” As she spoke, Allie worked her hand up the inside of Deo’s thigh and cupped her crotch. Unerringly, she pressed her thumb against the base of Deo’s clit and circled slowly.
“And you know it will be good.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Deo stiffened all over as her clit went rigid. “It’s already good.”
Watching Deo’s face, Allie eased up a little. “It’s not really what you want, though, is it?”
“Allie,” Deo whispered.
“I know what you look like when it’s what you need.” Allie patted Deo’s crotch and kissed her. Then she removed her hand. “You going to be okay?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Sure.” Allie glanced around the crowded room. “I might still get that fuck tonight, or I might just go home and sleep. Either way, we’re good.”
Deo drained her whiskey, kissed Allie’s cheek, and slid off the stool. “Thanks.”
Almost to the door, Deo saw Nita standing off to one side in the shadows and worked her way over to her.
“I got your message about the job,” Deo said.
“Good.”
“I’ll give you a call Monday afternoon or Tuesday with a work schedule.”
“Fine.”
Deo frowned at Nita’s icy tone. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Deo’s head hurt and her crotch ached. Her patience was nonexistent.
• 138 •
Winds of Fortune
“Damn it, Nita, if you’re pissed off at someone, don’t take it out on me.”
“You ought to be in a better mood seeing as your girlfriend just gave you a hand job at the bar,” Nita said acerbically. She couldn’t believe she’d let Deo get into her head the way she had when Deo clearly had nothing more on her mind than a quick fuck.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” Deo snapped, “but she isn’t.
And she didn’t.”
Before Nita could reply, Deo turned on her heel and stormed out the door.
“Good,” Nita muttered to herself. “Go.”
Then, before her judgment could overrule her instincts, she slammed her beer bottle down on the nearest table and hurried after her.
Her anger and self-loathing weren’t Deo’s fault and never had been.
“Deo!”
Deo didn’t stop but abruptly cut across a small parking lot to an adjacent street that was little more than an alleyway. Nita caught up to her halfway up the dark narrow passageway and grabbed her shoulder from behind. “Deo.”
Deo spun around. “What do you want?”
No street lights. Only moonlight. Deo’s face was all sharp planes and secret shadows. Her voice was harsh and undercut with pain. Nita grasped her muscular upper arms, pushed her back against a shoulder high stone wall, and drove her body against Deo’s.
“This.” Nita thrust her tongue into Deo’s mouth and was instantly swallowed by the heat. She moaned at her fi rst taste of Deo—whiskey and wanting and danger. Deo’s breasts were a tauntingly soft counterpoint to her hard stomach and thighs. God, Nita could barely breathe she was so hungry for her. She sucked Deo’s tongue and frantically rubbed her crotch into Deo’s.
Blindsided, Deo reacted by instinct. She grabbed Nita’s ass and dug her fi ngers in, urging Nita to pump faster between her spread thighs.
When Nita yanked Deo’s shirt from her jeans, shoved both hands up underneath, and squeezed her breasts, Deo’s clit expanded and pulsed.
She jerked her head away and Nita whimpered a protest.
“Keep it up and I’m gonna have to come,” Deo warned, trying to focus enough to see if they were still alone in the dark bend of the lane.
• 139 •
RADCLY fFE
“Oh yes,” Nita grated, pinching and twisting both nipples hard.
“Yes.”
“Fuck it.” Deo’s vision wavered and she closed her eyes. Only the wall at her back and the weight of Nita’s body pinning her to it kept her upright.
Nita plunged her tongue back into Deo’s mouth, distantly aware of Deo groaning, coming or trying not to, she couldn’t tell—all she knew was the fearful pounding low in her belly. She keened as it clawed at her, tearing her insides to shreds. Then, mercifully, the spasms erupted deep in her sex and, throwing back her head, she shouted triumphantly.
“Yes.”
Nita orgasmed twice in rapid succession, riding one peak right into the next, her mind wiped clean by blazing sensation. At last, she sagged against Deo and fought to control her rioting body. If she kissed Deo again right now she thought she might come just from tasting her. She had to stop before she tried to strip her naked on the street.
Deo’s arms trembled around her waist, and her chest heaved as if she were drowning. The part of Nita’s mind still functioning recoiled at the irony—she had meant to walk off her relentless lust for Deo, but she’d ended up assuaging it with Deo’s body.
“I’m sorry,” Nita murmured, pushing herself upright. “You didn’t ask for that. That was inexcusable of me.”
“I’m not complaining,” Deo gasped. “I’m not even sure what happened.”
“Did you even come?”
“I don’t know, I think so.” Deo’s head was still reeling, and she felt as if she had been hardwired into Nita’s nervous system and then electrocuted. “When you came it felt like I was coming, too, but I don’t know if I really was. Jesus, what did you do?”
“It’s been a long time. I lost control.”
When Nita tried to pull away, Deo tightened her grip on Nita’s hips. “What happened to you never wanting to be in the same country as me?”
“Apparently, I was mistaken.”
Deo waited until two shadowy fi gures, laughing softly, passed by arm in arm. “Who is Sylvia?”
“What?” Nita’s face fl amed when she realized she must have called Sylvia’s name. “I owe you a tremendous apology. I’m very sorry.”
• 140 •
Winds of Fortune
“It happens,” Deo said with a nonchalance she didn’t feel. She’d worried a time or two that she wouldn’t remember the name of the woman under her or inside her, but she’d never cared enough about anyone to cry her name in those few moments of complete and total surrender. Feeling irrationally jealous, she pulled Nita back between her legs. “I get that she’s a lover. What else?”
“It’s not relevant.” Nita gripped Deo’s wrists and pushed away.
To her surprise, Deo released her. Free, she had nowhere to go and, instead, stayed where she was.
“Don’t you think I deserve a little more than that, seeing how I just stood in for her?” Deo tucked in her shirt and started to walk toward Bradford.
Where Nita expected anger, she heard resignation, and that made her feel almost worse than anything else that had transpired in the last few disastrous moments. She owed Deo an explanation, since she wouldn’t accept an apology, and she fell into step. “She’s an ex-lover.”
“That part I fi gured out.”
Nita hesitated. She hadn’t told anyone, ever. Because she couldn’t.
And Deo was the last person she wanted to tell, because she hadn’t been thinking about Sylvia. Not consciously. It hadn’t been thoughts of Sylvia that had kept her awake the last few nights and it hadn’t been Sylvia in that bar making her half crazy because another woman had her hands all over her. That had been Deo. And only Deo. But she knew the two were tangled up in her mind, and worse, in her body.
She was grateful for the dark, because all she could see was the glint of moonlight in Deo’s eyes and the outline of her face. And she was thankful that Deo would not be able to see the shame in hers.
“Sylvia is the wife of my brother’s partner and the biggest mistake I ever made in my life.”
“Wait…your brother’s gay and his partner has a wife?”
Nita laughed mirthlessly. “No. My brother’s a cop and his partner on the force is Sylvia’s husband.”
“That sounds like a tricky situation.”
“It’s a cardinal sin. No one messes with a cop’s wife. If I’d been a man, they probably would have taken me somewhere and beaten me until I wished I were dead.” Nita sighed. “Since they couldn’t do that, they cast me out.”
• 141 •
RADCLY fFE
“Your brother?”
“My whole family. They’re all on the force and they all know.
Half the force knows. Sylvia and I were…indiscreet.” Sylvia had demanded sex when they were at a retirement party for one of Nita’s father’s friends. She couldn’t say no, she’d never been able to say no, and Sylvia’s husband had walked into a downstairs bathroom while Sylvia was taking her against the wall. Sylvia hadn’t stopped fucking her despite her husband’s outraged shout, and Nita had climaxed while he watched. “We all pretend it didn’t happen, but everyone is happier if I keep my distance.”
“Jesus. What about her? You still see her?”
“God, no. Even without the uproar from my family, Sylvia…
Sylvia told her husband I had seduced her. He believed her, because he loved her.”
“I guess you did too.”
“Believed her, or loved her? Neither.” Nita stopped walking.
She had said all there was to say. She had been unable to resist what Sylvia made her feel, and after tonight she couldn’t even lie to herself any longer. She still hungered for it. The wild passion, the consuming pleasure, the mind-melting burn of orgasm as it swept through her. Her weakness humiliated her. “I don’t expect you to do the renovations now.”
“Why not?” Deo studied Nita in the light of cars passing behind them. “I’m not angry.”
“You should be.”
“Why? Because we fucked when we both wanted to?” Deo shrugged, feigning calm. If Nita walked away with this between them, she’d never get close to her again, and she wanted to now, more than ever. Not just because of the sex, which had been unlike anything she’d ever experienced. But because she knew what it was like to pull a family apart, to be pushed aside and abandoned in payment for her sins. “That’s business. This is what it is.”
“What it is, is over.”
“All right,” Deo said, forcing herself to leave when she wanted to protest. When she wanted Nita naked in her bed, calling her name when she went blind with pleasure. “I’ll call you when I’m ready to start work.”
• 142 •
Winds of Fortune
Nita watched Deo walk away and want twisted through her. She despaired of ever forgetting the feel and taste of her. Hard muscles and tight-nippled breasts. Hot whiskey and sunshine. Oh God, what have I done?
• 143 •
• 144 •
Winds of Fortune
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tory tucked the chart from the last patient under her arm and paused when she saw the light fi ltering from beneath Nita’s closed door. It had to be close to ten p.m., and despite taking the day shift all week, Nita had been in the offi ce every night until after Tory had left. It had been so busy, they had done little more than pass one another in the hall, but the few times they’d spoken, Tory had noticed that Nita seemed tense and preoccupied. It wasn’t her nature to interfere, but she hoped they were becoming friends. She knocked on the closed door.
“Come in,” Nita called.
“It’s just the middle of July,” Tory pointed out with a smile. “If you keep it up, you’re not going to make it to Labor Day.”
“I don’t think paperwork is going to kill me,” Nita said, “although there have been times I’ve wanted to kill myself if I had to fi ll out one more insurance form.”
Tory laughed and settled into the chair across from Nita’s desk. “I know. I just wanted you to know I don’t expect you to work eighteen hours a day. You’re doing a great job. I’m really glad you’re here.”
“Thanks.” Nita fl ushed with an unexpected surge of gratitude at the affection in Tory’s voice. Until the debacle with Sylvia the year before, her sister Lena had been her closest friend and confi dant. Now when they spoke at all, it was strained and coldly formal. “So am I. I know we don’t have to decide anything right away, but I already know I want to stay.”
“Good. Then we agree.” Tory tapped the fi le against the edge of the desk and pretended to frown. “In which case I defi nitely don’t want you overworking. It’s Friday night. Shouldn’t you be taking advantage of all the hundreds of women in town?”
Tory’s tone was playful rather than suggestive. Still, Nita stared down at the desk to hide her reaction, because she had been considering just that for the last few hours. The brief, frantic sex she’d had with Deo
• 145 •
RADCLY fFE
had completely turned her inside out. She couldn’t stop thinking about it, about her, and she was as terrifi ed as she was on edge. It was just like the way it had been with Sylvia. She craved the taste of her, the feel of her, and she was constantly aroused. She’d talked to Deo on the phone twice during the week to approve the purchase of materials, and just the sound of her voice had left her wanting to come. It was worse in person.
She’d seen her once when she stopped by the house in the evening. She hadn’t expected Deo to be around that late but she had still been there, checking on the early stages of the project. The sight of her had made her wet and, afraid that Deo would read the lust in her eyes, she’d made some excuse and escaped as soon as possible.
Tonight she had been thinking that if she wore herself out with someone else, a stranger, she could get Deo out of her system. Maybe that’s what she should have done with Sylvia, instead of allowing Sylvia to control her. Instead of meeting Sylvia in some roadside motel every time she called, instead of letting Sylvia walk into the hospital and fuck her in an empty examining room or stairwell or supply closet any time she wanted. Instead of biting into her own fl esh to still her screams while Sylvia went down on her at a family barbecue with Sylvia’s husband just outside the open bedroom window, playing baseball with her brother and the other cops. Sylvia had craved the risk and Nita had craved Sylvia’s relentless, insatiable hunger for her.
Shuddering from the memories, she said hoarsely, “Maybe. Maybe I should.”
She must have given something away in her voice, because Tory tilted her head and regarded her with concern. “Something wrong?”
“No.” Nita feigned a smile. “A case of the blues, that’s all. I think I’ll feel better when I’m settled. I feel like my entire life is packed in boxes.”
“Are things underway at the house?”
“Yes,” Nita said curtly, and then, realizing how that sounded, went on, “Deo has a crew working outside on the roof and the windows and another inside redoing electrical.” She hoped her voice hadn’t trembled when she said Deo’s name, because she hadn’t felt quite steady. “Before long, I’ll be able to live there.”
“You’re not going to try living there while they’re still renovating, are you? God, Reese tried that when she fi rst moved here, and after a few weeks the constant disruption really started to get to her.” Tory
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Winds of Fortune
smiled. “Fortunately, I got her to move in with me.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t diffi cult,” Nita said, hoping to change the subject.
“Harder than you might think. I wasn’t too trusting of relationships at the time and Reese…Reese had never been in one.” Tory shook her head. “God, we were a pair.”
“It’s funny,” Nita mused almost to herself, “when you see a solid couple you think that things have always been that way. That they never had issues to work out.”
“We’re solid,” Tory said. “As solid as any two people can be, but we certainly have issues.” She sighed. “I never expected Iraq. I don’t remember Vietnam, and who really imagines a war like this?”
“Where are things with that now?”
Tory grimaced. “Nelson’s illness has just about eclipsed everything else, and now Reese is working double and sometimes triple shifts. We haven’t really talked about it.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.” At Tory’s surprised glance, Nita shrugged. “Reentry must be terribly disorienting. One minute, she’s half a world away in the middle of a war. Added to the pressure of keeping other people from being killed, she must have been worried about her responsibilities to you—and then she’s wounded and captured. A few days later she’s home again. God, my head is swimming even thinking about it.”
“You’re saying that the best thing for her is just that she’s home,”
Tory mused aloud, although she was really talking to herself. “That she gets used to being here, back in her life, our life, for a while before she… we…make any decisions.”
“I think so.” Nita leaned forward. “Even though she’s terribly busy, I imagine it feels good to her to be surrounded by people she loves, doing the work she loves.”
“Why didn’t I see that?” Tory said reproachfully.
“Because she scared you to death and you thought you were going to lose her, and none of us sees too clearly when we’re terrifi ed.”
“I think you’re good for me.” Tory smiled and wagged her fi nger at Nita. “Now you have to stay.”
“I’d like that,” Nita said softly, feeling just a little bit better for the last few moments of connection. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that.
• 147 •
RADCLY fFE
“So? Are you going to get out of here before it’s too late to go out and have fun?”
Laughing, Nita threw up her hands. “I’m going. I’m going.”
“Good,” Tory said, rising. “Let loose a little.”
“Whatever you say,” Nita said, laughing too.
“I don’t want to see you back here until Sunday afternoon,” Tory said on her way out of the room.
When Nita contemplated the next thirty-six hours, she wondered how she would fi ll them. Of one thing she was certain. Letting loose was the last thing she wanted to do.
❖
Tory arrived home an hour later, and the house was dark. Her heart sank as she climbed the stairs to the rear deck. Reese must be working an extra shift again. She wondered how long Reese could keep up the relentless pace without folding. Even her formidable will and strength couldn’t hold up forever.
“You need to stop worrying so much,” Reese’s voice came to her through the dark.
“You can’t see my face, and I know I’m not talking to myself,”
Tory said, now able to make out the image of her lover reclining in a lounge chair. Already, her heart felt lighter. “So how do you know what I was thinking?”
“You were sighing.” Reese reached out to her.
Tory laughed and clasped Reese’s hand. “Up. If I lie down there with you, I’m going to fall asleep or want to make love. Unfortunately, I’m tired enough for the fi rst and too tired for the second.”
“I’m not sure I followed all of that,” Reese said, unfolding her length from the chair and rising. She slipped her arm around Tory’s waist. “But I got that you’re tired. Want a glass of wine and a soak in the tub?”
“Oh God, that sounds good,” Tory murmured, resting her cheek against Reese’s shoulder. “Yes to the wine, but can I have it in bed?”
“Leg still bothering you?”
“A little.”
“Then why don’t you go upstairs and I’ll be up in a few minutes with your wine.”
• 148 •
Winds of Fortune
Tory kissed her, lingering on her mouth and lightly teasing just inside with her tongue. “Thank you.”
A few minutes later, Tory stretched out in bed and murmured appreciatively as Reese handed her a glass of red wine. Sipping slowly she watched with pleasure as Reese stripped and joined her beneath the sheets. “How’s Reggie?”
“Talking up a storm.” Reese took the glass when Tory offered and tasted the wine. “Words are right around the corner. It’s amazing.” She watched the red wine swirl in the glass. “She changes so quickly. I would have missed so much if I’d been gone longer.”
Tory turned on her side and smoothed her fi ngers through Reese’s hair. “Your mother told me your father was gone most of the time when you were this age. It must have been very hard for him.”
“Maybe. I’m sure part of him was happy doing what he was trained to do. Not being deployed to Iraq this time is driving him crazy.”
“I guess I don’t quite understand anyone wanting a war,” Tory said quietly.
“Wanting to test yourself, to do what you’re trained to do, isn’t quite the same thing as wanting a war,” Reese said, “although I know it probably sounds that way.”
“It’s a distinction that’s very hard to grasp.” Tory stroked Reese’s arm. “But you didn’t want war, and you’re as much a marine as he is.”
“Thanks.” Reese leaned close and kissed Tory briefl y. “I’m a peacekeeper, and that’s different than wanting to engage the enemy. I never needed a war to do what I thought was important.”
“You’re a peacekeeper here,” Tory pointed out. “Not only do you keep your community safe, you help train the young to be strong and self-confi dent and self-reliant. You’re a role model for young women and men just like Bri. This community needs you.”
Reese cupped Tory’s cheek and kissed her. “One thing’s for certain. I don’t want Nelson’s job. A few weeks of dealing with the paperwork and bureaucracy is enough to convince me of that. I need to be on the streets.”
“Until Nelson is back on his feet, you can’t do both jobs.” Tory held up an index fi nger in warning. “I mean it. There’s nothing you can say that will convince me otherwise. As long as you’re acting chief, you need to cut back on the street patrols. Please. Before you get hurt.”
Reese grimaced, but nodded. “All right. We’re starting to get things
• 149 •
RADCLY fFE
running smoothly again, especially now that Bri is back on duty.”
“How is she doing?”
“She’s a little distracted, a little tired, but Allie’s watching out for her. She’s okay.”
“Good.” Tory took the glass, fi nished the wine, and set the glass aside. “Nelson will be home in a few days and that will make it easier for her.”
Reese rested back against the pillows and drew Tory into her arms. She kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair. “Speaking of fathers, mine called today.”
Tory struggled not to pull away. She smoothed her fi ngertip along Reese’s collarbone, noting that the swelling at the site of the fracture was better. “Oh?”
“There’s a post open in his department at Strategic Planning in DC. He thought I should take it when my medical leave is over.”
“DC.” Tory willed herself to think—think, not react. “Not Iraq.”
“No, not Iraq. Tory—”
“DC isn’t so far. You’d get home sometimes, right? Or we could come—”
“Baby, I’m not going.”
“I know it’s a desk job and you hate that, but—”
“I told him I hadn’t changed my mind,” Reese said before kissing Tory into silence. She drew Tory on top of her and spread her fi ngers through Tory’s thick auburn hair. “I told him I wanted him to fi nalize the paperwork for my discharge.”
“Be careful of your collarbone. I’m too heavy to be on top of you just yet.”
Reese laughed and kissed the tip of Tory’s chin. “You’re not heavy, but you are very sexy. How tired are you?”
Tory tilted her hips into Reese’s crotch. “I’m waking up.”
“So am I.”
“Did he argue?”
“He said we’d talk again.” Seeing the look of concern fl ash across Tory’s face, Reese said quickly, “It’s okay. He’ll do whatever I want.
He’s just going to take a little convincing.”
“I love you,” Tory said softly. “I will support you in anything you need to do.”
• 150 •
Winds of Fortune
“I know.” Reese caressed Tory’s back and cradled her butt. “Right now, I need you.”
Tory leaned up and turned off the light. Then she settled once again on top of Reese. “Darling, you never need to ask.”
❖
Nita walked past the Vixen without a glance. At midnight on Saturday night, Deo was undoubtedly there if she hadn’t already found company for the evening. Nita didn’t want to chance another encounter, because she could never be certain how she was going to respond to her. She couldn’t afford a repeat of the previous weekend’s performance. Her life hadn’t felt this off-kilter since the early days of her relationship with Sylvia. She could barely think, she couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep.
Ten minutes later she paid her cover and worked her way through the throngs of dancing, laughing women at the Pied. It was a little smaller but had the advantage of an outside deck right on the harbor and, after securing a drink at the bar, Nita walked outside and leaned on the deck rail. Sipping her drink, she let the sea breeze cool her heated skin. She was warm from the walk through town and her thoughts of Deo.
As disconcerting as it was to be plagued by the insistent thrum of unsatisfi ed arousal, she felt alive in a way she hadn’t for months. And despite her regret over giving in to her urges with Deo, she wouldn’t lie to herself and say that it hadn’t been wonderful. For one blazing instant, riding the crest of nearly unbearable pleasure, she had felt completely free.
“Excuse me, but I was wondering if you’d like to dance?” a woman asked from quite nearby.
Nita didn’t recognize the short-haired blonde with the pleasant smile, which was good. She had come out looking for a diversion, and she preferred to fi nd it with someone she wasn’t going to be seeing around town on a regular basis. “Yes. Yes, I would.”
The tempo of the fi rst dance was fast and the music too loud for conversation, but Nita managed to get a name and a few other snippets of vital information, the most critical of which was that Beth was in town
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RADCLY fFE
for the week on vacation. One song segued into another until eventually the rhythm slowed enough that they could dance close. Twice in less than a week Nita found herself with her arms around a near stranger after having gone months without touching another woman. Beth was an inch or two shorter than Deo and thinner, lacking her hard muscles, but curving in all the right places. Nita enjoyed the swell of soft breasts moving against her own and the subtle press of Beth’s thigh between hers as they danced. She was pleasantly aroused but in no danger of losing control again. When Beth deftly maneuvered them into a corner of the room and kissed her, Nita found Beth’s soft lips and gently probing tongue enjoyable, but she felt none of the urgency she had with Deo. After a minute or two when Beth moaned softly and tightened her hold, Nita gently pulled away.
“I think I need to slow this down,” Nita murmured.
“Sorry,” Beth said breathlessly. “I don’t usually—”
“Don’t apologize. I’m not the least bit upset.” Nita smiled. “I enjoyed the dance and the rest of it.”
“Any chance we might get together sometime this week?”
“Give me your number. I’ll call if I can.”
“I don’t have anything to write with,” Beth said.
“Don’t worry, I have a very good memory.” After Beth recited the fi gures, Nita repeated them mentally, then kissed Beth lightly. “Thank you. And thank you for the dance.”
Pleased that her restlessness had dissipated, Nita decided she’d achieved her goal and made her way to the exit. She had just stepped out into the narrow passageway that led to the street when Deo caught up to her.
“I take it the blonde wasn’t to your liking?” Deo said.
Nita slowed, taking in Deo’s tight white tank top, form-fi tting black jeans, and boots. The shirt left nothing to the imagination, and even in the murky light cast by the neon signs on the street, Deo looked sleek and sexy. In one beat of her heart to the next, Nita became completely aroused.
“On the contrary,” Nita said coolly, desperately trying to smother the fl ames licking at her insides. Several women left the bar together and she stepped off the wooden walkway to let them pass. Deo followed until they stood in the shadows of the building. “She was very pleasant.”
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“Pleasant.” Deo said the word as if she were speaking of something that should be crushed under her boot. “You don’t want pleasant.”
“You don’t know what I want.”
“Sure I do.” Deo leaned into her until their bodies touched. “You want the burn. You want the fi re.” She stroked Nita’s cheek with one fi nger. “So do I. Come home with me.”
“No.”
“Why not? You came out looking for more than a kiss, and I never got a chance to touch you last week.” Deo skimmed her hand lower, tracing Nita’s throat with a gentle caress.
Nita’s heart felt as if it might pound out of her chest, and she was glad Deo couldn’t see her face very clearly. She doubted she could hide how badly she wanted Deo to keep touching her. “I told you, it was a one time thing.”
“I don’t consider a quick grope anything more than an invitation.
I want to make love to you all night,” Deo said. “Then maybe it will be a one time thing.”
“I’m sorry.” Nita stepped around Deo. “Good night.”
“I need to go over some things with you at the job site,” Deo said, grasping her arm. “You can’t keep avoiding me.”
“Fine.” Nita pulled free. “I’ll be by sometime this week. If I get time.”
“There will be plenty of people around. You don’t have to worry.”
“You don’t worry me.” Nita turned and walked away, aware that Deo was watching her. No, Deo didn’t worry her. What worried her was how desperately she wanted Deo’s hands on her. Walking toward home, she knew that she faced another restless night and she had just said no to the only person who could have given her some relief. She’d said no because she had so very badly wanted to say yes. A mindless yes had nearly destroyed her once, and she could not let it happen again.
• 153 •
• 154 •
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When her offi ce phone rang, Nita gulped down the last of her soda and snatched up the receiver. “Burgoyne.”
“Nita,” Randy said, “it’s Deo Camara again.”
“Tell her—” Nita hesitated, feeling guilty about forcing Randy to make excuses for her. Deo had already called twice that week, and she’d ducked the previous calls with the message that she was with patients. Then she had conveniently not called back. “I’ll take it.”
A second later, Nita said, “Hello.”
“It’s Deo.”
“I know.” Nita couldn’t help herself. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. The sound of Deo’s voice fi lled her with pleasure, and since Deo couldn’t see her, she had no reason to hide her response.
“What time do you get off work?”
“Around seven, if no emergencies come up. Why?”
“I need you to do a walk-through with me,” Deo said.
“Can it wait until the weekend? I’m off on Sunday.”
“No. We should have done it two days ago but you’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are.”
Deo sounded both edgy and sexy, and an image of Deo in the tight white tank top that showed off her muscles and breasts came quickly to mind. Nita shivered with a full body memory of Deo gasping with excitement while they rocked against one another. Recalling how she had rushed to orgasm in Deo’s arms, Nita’s body quickened instantly, and she had the exhilarating, absolutely petrifying thought that if Deo kept talking she might come just sitting there.
“I can stop by your offi ce if it’s inconvenient for you to co—”
“No!” Nita couldn’t see Deo at work. She wouldn’t be able to concentrate for the rest of the evening. Worse, she couldn’t trust herself.
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RADCLY fFE
Her plan to diminish Deo’s unsettling impact on her by avoiding her had backfi red. With each passing day, she thought of her more frequently.
And the nights. Her nights were a nightmare of erotic dreams and feverish sleep.
“I’ll meet you.” Nita glanced at her watch. For a Thursday night the patient load was light, and there was no telling what Friday would bring. “I can be there in an hour and a half.”
“That’s fi ne. Thanks.”
Nita hung up and rested her face in her hands, drawing deep breaths while she willed her traitorous body to calm. After a minute, she slumped back in her chair and opened her eyes. Tory stood in the doorway watching her.
“Bad news?” Tory asked with concern.
Nita laughed shakily. “No. No, that was Deo—something about the house.”
“How’s it going?”
“Fine. Fine.”
“Deo is supposed to be very good.”
Nita feared that Tory could tell she was blushing from across the room. When Tory moved further into the room and closed the door, Nita was certain of it.
“The last couple of weeks I got the sense something was bothering you,” Tory said. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“We’ve got patients,” Nita said.
“We’ve always got patients. Ten minutes won’t change anything.”
“It’s nothing. Just stress—the house, you know.”
“Uh-huh. The house.”
Nita chewed her bottom lip. She had never told anyone what was happening with Sylvia. Who could she possibly have told who wouldn’t tell her exactly what she’d been telling herself—getting involved with Sylvia was insane. It was a recipe for heartbreak. Worse, it was wrong.
All the time her life had slowly been consumed by her affair with Sylvia, she had become more and more alone, until all she had left was thwarted desire.
“Deo is very attractive,” Nita said quietly.
“Deo Camara is gorgeous.” Tory sat down, looking as if she had all the time in the world. “Is she hitting on you?”
“Now why would you ask that,” Nita said sarcastically.
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Looking surprised, Tory said, “Because you happen to be very attractive too, and I imagine Deo has noticed.”
“Apparently Deo makes a habit of hitting on women.”
“I don’t know her well enough to say,” Tory said. “I doubt she lacks for company, considering that she’s young and single and seems to be very nice.”
“Not to mention the gorgeous part.”
“Yes. There is that too.” Tory paused. “And you’re not interested?”
“No,” Nita said after a long second. “I am.”
It felt good to say it out loud, even if she had no idea what it meant. It felt good not to be alone with the feelings.
“You don’t sound happy about it.”
“I don’t have time for the kind of upheaval a woman like Deo creates.”
Tory frowned. “What kind of upheaval?”
“The distraction, the obsession. The…the…God, I don’t know. I can’t think.”
“Sounds like you’ve already got the distraction part,” Tory said with a small smile.
Nita laughed shortly. “Oh God, I do.”
“You’re attracted to her, but you’re not sure you want to be.”
“No. I’m quite certain I don’t want to be.” Nita stood and picked up the closest fi le. “As long as I remember that, I’ll be fi ne.”
“All right. That might work.” Tory rose and gave Nita a quick hug.
“If you ever want to talk, let me know.”
“Thanks. I…just thanks.”
❖
Deo paced on the wide front porch of Nita’s house. Maybe Nita wasn’t coming. Nita obviously didn’t want to see her, but she just couldn’t take the hint. Hell, Nita had gone out looking for sex with a stranger rather than take Deo up on her offer to go another round. That should have hammered home the message that Nita wasn’t interested.
But after slowly going crazy all week when Nita wouldn’t return her calls, she had fi nally pushed her into a meeting. Totally unlike her. Then again, nothing about her reaction to Nita was like her.
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It would have been so much simpler if she didn’t know that Nita wanted her. Contrary to what everyone thought, there were plenty of women who weren’t interested in her, and she didn’t chase after them. She never made it a secret that she wasn’t interested in anything resembling a long-term relationship, and that was enough to send most women running in the opposite direction. Now and then she misjudged and ended up going home with someone who said she only wanted a casual thing, but really believed she could change Deo’s mind after a date or two. When that happened, Deo extricated herself as quickly and painlessly as she could.
But whatever else was going on with Nita, Nita wanted her body, at least. That had been amazingly and very pleasurably obvious for those few incinerating moments in the dark. Ordinarily, when Deo got the sense that a woman didn’t want a repeat, she let it go. This time she couldn’t, and not being able to get Nita out of her mind not only pissed her off, it confused her. Sure, she wanted Nita in bed again.
Christ, who wouldn’t. She was beautiful and sexy, and she set Deo off like a 220 volt blast straight to the groin. But it was more than possibly the best sex she’d had in her life that kept her thinking about Nita, that had her craving the sound of her voice and the lightest touch of her fi ngers all day long and half the night. When Nita told her about Sylvia, Nita couldn’t hide how much she hurt. And she hurt in a way Deo understood. Passion and pain ruled Nita with equal measure, and Deo was drawn to both.
She braced her hands on the railing and watched the crowds passing by beyond the iron gates at the end of Nita’s fl agstone sidewalk. Men in groups, mostly shirtless, jostling and cruising. Women, usually in couples, many pushing strollers. Straight families, the kids oblivious to the passing spectacle and the parents trying to act as if being surrounded by same-sex couples was ordinary. All different, but still families of a sort. When she allowed herself to stop working and screwing until she was too tired to do anything else except drop into bed, Deo wondered what her life would have been like if she hadn’t lost hers. And those pointless ruminations were exactly what drove her to fi ll her days with work and her nights with women.
The rusted wrought iron gate creaked open and Nita slipped through it. With the setting sun at Nita’s back, Deo couldn’t see her face clearly, but the air shimmered around her as she glided toward
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her. Her dark hair fl owed loosely around her shoulders, and she lifted a hand to push the wind-blown strands away from her face. She was beautiful in the unselfconscious way of women who had no idea how truly beautiful they were.
“Sorry I’m late.” Nita stopped at the bottom of the broad wooden stairs to take in Deo as she leaned with her forearms on the railing.
Her T-shirt was damp at the neck and her hair looked wet. Nita had noticed several of the workmen dousing their heads and shoulders with a hose, washing away the grit at the end of the day, and she imagined that Deo had done the same. She could see Deo, the hose coiled in one hand, tossing her head back while water cascaded from her face. In the next breath, she envisioned Deo’s face above her in bed, sweat dripping from her jaw onto Nita’s cheeks as they rode each other. The image was so intense she nearly moaned.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” Deo said, trying to read what she saw in Nita’s face. For a minute she thought Nita was going to turn and walk away.
“I was just about to head over here,” Nita said breathlessly, “and we had an emergency. Tory is going to be seeing patients for another few hours as it is, and I couldn’t leave her with an add-on, too.”
“Something serious?”
Nita climbed the stairs, thankful that discussing work helped ground her. Her heart rate was slowing toward normal, and she could actually look at Deo without imagining how Deo would feel stretched out on top of her, naked. Almost. “A two-year-old with a peanut in her ear.”
Deo laughed and led the way into the house. “Ouch. I bet that was fun.”
“She was actually fi ne. It was her mother who was stressed, which is usually the case.”
“I’ll bet.” Deo fl ipped a switch and a temporary overhead light, sans fi xture, came to life. “Voilà.”
“Very nice,” Nita replied, admiring the dangling bare bulb. “Quite an improvement.”
“Thank you,” Deo said with a small bow. “So how did your patient manage to get the peanut stuck in her ear?”
“Compliments of her four-year-old brother.”
“Ah, now I see.” Deo walked into the kitchen, caught up in the easy
• 159 •
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conversation. Without thinking, she said, “I stuffed a bb up my brother’s nose when we were four. They had a hell of a time fi nding it.”
“I imagine.” Nita was fascinated by the glimpse of pure pleasure that suffused Deo’s face. She had so rarely seen her so unguarded. She looked young, carefree, happy. Then, the light in Deo’s eyes died and she looked away. Without a second’s thought, Nita grasped her hand.
The scar that snaked across the top stood out starkly against her tan.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Deo asked hoarsely.
“About your brother.”
“Yeah. Well.” Deo wasn’t certain why she had even mentioned Gabe. She never talked about him. No one did, at least not when she was around. Maybe it was just easier to confess while standing in the middle of the century old kitchen with the fractured rays of sunlight slanting through the wavy glass windows, feeling as if she had been transported to another time. Nita’s voice was so gentle, her fi ngers so warm and so soft. No one ever touched her just to soothe her pain.
“Gabriel,” Deo heard herself say. His name felt strange on her tongue, as if it was a foreign language she’d forgotten she knew how to speak. “We were twins.”
“Ah, God. It’s terrible to lose a sibling, but a twin. I think that’s even worse.”
Deo’s expression hardened and she pulled her hand away. “No.
What makes it worse is when you kill him. Let’s fi nish this up. I’m sure you have better things to do.”
“Deo,” Nita said as Deo turned away, unable to bear the terrible sorrow she glimpsed in Deo’s face. “I understood it was an accident.”
“From who?”
“Tory.”
“It wasn’t. I was there, I should know.”
When Deo made no move to walk away, but instead stood staring out the window into the overgrown garden that overran a small fl agstone patio, Nita stepped beside her and rested her hand on Deo’s shoulder.
In profi le, Deo’s face might have been carved from granite. “What happened?”
Beneath Nita’s fi ngers, Deo’s torso rose and fell with her quick shallow breaths.
“We were at a party. Most of the kids were a year or two ahead of
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us. Everyone was drinking and…he walked in on me and another girl when we had gotten to the point where we couldn’t lie about what we were doing. I hadn’t told him I was gay and he was pissed. I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t told him or because he was ashamed of me.”
Nita felt Deo shudder but resisted the urge to put her arm around Deo’s shoulders. She was afraid if she pulled Deo too far from her reverie she’d stop talking. “What did he say?”
“Nothing. Well, he cursed me out, and then he stormed out.” Deo laughed brittlely. “Of course he was drunk, and he never could drink much. I caught up to him down at the harbor just as he was un-mooring the skiff we kept docked there. It was the middle of the night and a big storm was coming in. The waves were already too high for that size boat, but he wouldn’t listen. I barely managed to jump in before he pulled away from the dock.”
Deo stretched her arm along the window casement and rested her forehead against it. Nita couldn’t see her face, but she didn’t need to. She could hear the anguish. She gently rubbed small circles in the center of Deo’s rigid back.
“He had always been a crappy pilot and loaded…forget it. He couldn’t take the waves and we were foundering. I tried to make him give me the wheel, but I could hardly keep my feet under me. Then we went over and…” Deo choked and her shoulders heaved.
“Just take your time,” Nita murmured.
“At fi rst I couldn’t fi nd him, but somehow I grabbed onto his shirt.
He didn’t answer me when I yelled his name, and I couldn’t see his face.” Deo rubbed her eyes with one hand. “It took me so long to get him to shore. And then it was too late.”
Nita was no stranger to pain. She consoled those who had lost loved ones all the time, aching for every one of them while she offered pitifully inadequate words of comfort. She held herself back then because she had to, because the distance allowed her to do what she was best at. But she couldn’t bear to stand by helplessly while Deo suffered.
Ignoring the alarm bells clanging wildly in her head, she threaded both arms around Deo’s waist and pressed a kiss to the center of her back.
“I’m so terribly sorry.”
With a muffl ed groan, Deo spun around and pulled Nita into an embrace. But instead of kissing her, which is what Nita expected, Deo buried her face against Nita’s neck. Holding her, Nita stroked the back
• 161 •
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of her head and rocked her gently, as she would a child.
“It’s all right. It’s all right,” she whispered, even though she knew it wasn’t. Words would not heal this wound.
After a few moments, Deo backed away. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize.”
“I don’t know why I told you that.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“Why?” Deo demanded. Anger warred with gratitude. She didn’t want to talk about Gabriel, she didn’t want to think about him. She didn’t want to admit how good it felt to be held, and not blamed.
“Because I know how hard that was for you and I’m…I’m honored that you told me.” Nita reached out to touch Deo’s face, then stopped at the last second. They’d already gone too far.
“He wouldn’t have been in that boat if it hadn’t been for me. And if I hadn’t let him pilot it, we wouldn’t have capsized. He drowned because I fucked up.”
“It was a horrible accident.” Nita knew her words wouldn’t change Deo’s mind or assuage her guilt. “I’m so very sorry.”
“Yeah.” Deo let out a long breath. “Look, do you mind if we do this tomorrow?”
“No, of course not.”
“I’ll call you.”
“All right.” Nita followed as Deo strode rapidly ahead of her down the hall toward the front of the house. Deo held the heavy wood door open so Nita could step out onto the porch.
“I’d appreciate it if you would forget this happened,” Deo said.
“I won’t mention it to anyone.” Nita already knew there was no way she could forget it. She could still feel Deo in her arms.
“Thanks.” Deo closed and locked the door, then circled Nita without touching her. As she hurried down the front steps, she murmured, “Good night.”
“Good night, Deo.”
Nita watched Deo slip through the iron gate and disappear into the crowds. She wondered if there was a woman Deo would go to for comfort or just to help her forget her pain for a few hours. Slowly, Nita made her way down the walk, too weary and too raw to even pretend she didn’t want to be that woman.
• 162 •
Winds of Fortune
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bri,” Allie said, rolling down the window to get a better look at the fi gure hunched over on the edge of the pier, “pull over there.”
“What have you got?” Bri eased the patrol car to a stop and squinted to see through the light rain that had begun falling just after midnight.
“There’s someone leaning against the piling and it looks like they’re about an inch from falling into the bay.”
“Better check it out.”
Allie stepped out of the car and fl icked on her fl ashlight, then waited until Bri did the same before cautiously approaching the person, whose face was turned away. “You there, on the pier. Sheriff’s department.
You want to slide back from the edge?”
When the person gave no indication of moving, Allie played her light over the fi gure, looking for anything that suggested a weapon or other sign of danger. Closer now, she recognized the broad shoulders beneath the soaked T-shirt and the familiar line of her jaw. “Deo?”
Bri approached from the opposite side, and she and Allie reached Deo at the same time. Allie made a motion for Bri to wait and then squatted down next to Deo. “Hey, baby. What are you doing out here?”
Slowly, Deo turned her head. “Chasing ghosts.”
“With what? Tequila?”
“Not for a few hours.”
“Did you drive?”
Deo shook her head. “Walked.”
“If you fall asleep you’re going to end up in the harbor,” Allie teased, studying Deo’s face carefully. She seemed dazed, almost disoriented. “Take my hand so I can help you up.”
“I’m okay.” Deo braced one hand against the huge wooden piling
• 163 •
RADCLY fFE
and tried to get her feet under her. She swayed dangerously out over the water ten feet below them, the surface nothing more than a shiny black slick in the moonlight.
“Whoa,” Allie said, yanking Deo’s T-shirt and nearly toppling forward herself. “Steady.”
Bri grabbed Deo from behind, hooked both hands under Deo’s armpits, and dragged her back from the edge. “Jesus, Camara, you want to take Allie into the water with you? What the fuck are you doing?”
“Easy, Bri,” Allie murmured, climbing to her feet.
“Sorry.” Deo blinked rapidly. “Sorry.”
“Get up.” Bri lifted and Deo pushed herself to her feet. She wavered for a few seconds, then got her balance.
“I’m not drunk,” Deo said, although her voice was thick, almost slurred.
“How much did you have to drink earlier?” Bri’s expression was stony.
“A few shots. Just tired.”
“Where’s your truck?”
“Home.”
“Come on, Deo,” Allie said gently. “Get in the cruiser. We’ll take you home.”
“I’ll walk. Clear my head.”
Allie glanced at Bri who shook her head. “It’s an ugly night and that’s a long walk. Besides, this will give us something to do.”
“I’ll be okay.”
Bri gripped Deo’s arm. “Get in the cruiser, Camara. We’re driving you.”
Deo hesitated, then followed along as Bri escorted her to the patrol car. Once in the back seat, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
“Deo,” Allie said softly fi ve minutes later. “We’re here.”
“Thanks,” Deo said after Allie got out and opened the door for her.
“You okay, baby?” Allie said softly.
“Yeah.”
“You want me to come by later?” Allie ran her fi ngertips over Deo’s chest. “Maybe just to talk?”
• 164 •
Winds of Fortune
Deo covered Allie’s hand with hers and squeezed gently. “Thanks.
I’m just gonna crash.”
“Sure. Just remember, you can always call.”
Allie stepped back and then waited outside the cruiser until Deo unlocked the door and disappeared inside.
“We can swing by again,” Bri said when Allie settled back into the front seat, “if you’re worried about her. Make sure she doesn’t take the truck out anywhere.”
“She’s probably in for the night, but if you don’t mind—”
“Hell, Allie, I don’t mind. She looks fucked up tonight. Is there some kind of trouble between you two?”
“No,” Allie sighed. “I haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks. I mean I’ve seen her, but not that way. We’re really not an item.”
“You want to be?” Bri asked as she headed back down Bradford to the center of town.
Allie was quiet for a minute. “I think if we were still fucking, I’d want to be, because I like her, you know?” She shifted on the seat a little and grinned at Bri. “She’s like you. All dark and broody. I’m a sucker for that.”
Bri laughed and kept her eyes on the road. “Yeah, right. So why haven’t you gone after her?”
“She’s not all broody over me, and I think I’m gonna hold out for a girl who is.”
“I don’t get that,” Bri muttered.
Allie reached across the space between them and patted Bri’s thigh. “I know you don’t. But Caroline does.”
❖
When the sunlight hit Deo in the eyes at six a.m, she rolled over with a groan and buried her face in the pillow. Cautiously, she took stock. Headache. Queasy stomach. Scratchy eyes. Not enough sleep.
A little too much to drink. She hadn’t set out to get drunk and quit drinking when she realized she was on her way, but the whole night was something of a blur. She should not have talked to Nita about Gabe—
every time she thought about that night the guilt fucked her up.
She fl ipped onto her back and guardedly opened her eyes. Other
• 165 •
RADCLY fFE
than the fact that it felt like someone was sticking hot needles into her eyeballs, she fi gured she’d live. For a long time after Gabe had died, she hadn’t really wanted to, but some part of her wouldn’t give up.
Plus, Pia would have kicked her ass if she’d done something stupid. So she’d shut down the parts of her that hurt and tried not to look back.
Then, something as simple as a childhood memory had brought it all back with perfect clarity. That happened sometimes, and it was always bad. This time was different. Nita had listened and whispered, It’s all right. Deo knew that was a kind lie, but it felt good to have someone say it anyhow. Pia had tried, all those long years ago, but Deo had never believed her. She didn’t believe Nita either, but knowing that Nita believed it still eased some of the hurt inside.
So maybe the jackhammer tearing up the inside of her skull was worth it after all. With a groan, she rolled out of bed and headed for the shower. On her way, she remembered Bri and Allie bringing her home.
She’d have to call Allie and thank her.
Allie. Allie was sweet and sexy. Why not Allie? Why couldn’t she be losing sleep over Allie? They were good together, and it would be simpler. Easier. She reached into the shower, twisted the faucet to cold, and stepped in. Gasping, she toughed it out until the cobwebs dissipated and her head felt clearer.
Not Allie—maybe because it would be easier. Easier maybe, but not as honest. And she liked Allie too much for that.
❖
Nita looked at her watch for the third time in fi ve minutes and told herself for the tenth time in the last fi fteen that she was making a mistake. She should not be sitting in front of her new house at six-thirty in the morning waiting for Deo Camara to come to work. She should not have lain awake half the night worrying about her, either. And she certainly should not have called her at two in the morning. Thankfully, Deo hadn’t been home, and she hadn’t left a message. What would she have said?
Hi, I’m calling you in the middle of the night because I can’t sleep, and I can’t stop thinking about the pain in your eyes.
Oh yes, that would have been perfect. Of course, discovering that Deo wasn’t home only gave her an entirely new set of circumstances
• 166 •
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to lose sleep over. Who was holding her, consoling her—offering her pleasure to banish the pain? Imagining someone comforting Deo was every bit as diffi cult to tolerate as the visions of someone caressing her, making her cry out, making her come.
“This is crazy, and you’re going to make yourself crazy,” Nita muttered. She reached for the keys but before she could start the engine, Deo pulled in to the curb in front of her. Nita took a deep breath and watched Deo climb out of the truck. White T-shirt, khaki pants, work boots. Her hair still wet—her hair always seemed to be wet and every time Nita saw it, she wanted to drive her hands into it. Deo had circles under her eyes, and Nita didn’t doubt that the shadows extended all the way inside.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Nita opened the car door and stepped out. “Good morning.”
Deo walked cautiously forward. “Hi.”
“I…uh…thought I’d get a look at the place during the day.” Nita couldn’t bring herself to say I wanted to see you. I hate how much you were hurting last night. “I know you’re probably very busy right now and I won’t keep you—”
“No, that’s okay. The guys won’t be here for at least half an hour.”
Deo came alongside Nita’s car and stopped a few inches from her. “Do you want to go inside?”
“Sure, I—” Nita halted as a patrol car stopped in the street beside them and an offi cer stepped out. She didn’t immediately recognize her, but it was clear that Deo did, judging by her surprised expression.
When Nita looked closer, she realized who it was. Deo’s not girlfriend.
“Maybe we’ll do this another time.”
When Nita opened her car door to leave, Deo grabbed the top edge and held on.
“No,” Deo said, “I won’t be a minute. Don’t go.”
Nita hesitated, aware that the offi cer was standing a few feet away, observing the exchange. Deo hadn’t taken her eyes from Nita’s face and Nita couldn’t look away from her. Her throat felt tight and dry.
“Okay. I’ll wait on the porch.”
“Wait right here.” Deo turned toward Allie. “Hi. Just fi nishing your shift?”
“Yeah, we’re on our way in right now,” Allie said. “We saw your truck was gone from the condo. You’re here early.”
• 167 •
RADCLY fFE
“The forecast is calling for rain again tomorrow,” Deo said. “You know how it is.”
“I know. Contractors have to work while the sun is shining.” Allie glanced up at Nita’s house, then nodded to Nita. “It’s looking good.”
“Yes, thanks,” Nita said.
“Thanks for the ride home last night,” Deo said.
“No thanks needed.” Allie slid back into the cruiser. As the cruiser pulled away she called out the window, “Be careful up on that roof today.”
“Always.” Deo waved after the cruiser, still holding Nita’s door open with the other arm. Then she turned in Nita’s direction. “Ready to go inside?”
“You sure it’s no trouble?”
“None at all,” Deo said, closing Nita’s door. She led the way up the fl agstone walk and inside. “There’s something I want to show you in the master bedroom.”
Nita followed up the wide twisting staircase to the second level.
A balcony ringed the foyer below. The center room was the master bedroom, and when she walked in, she had an image of a four poster bed, an antique armoire, and a rich oriental carpet covering the wide plank fl oors.
“It’s such a beautiful room.”
“It is,” Deo said. “The window seat on the back wall was designed to offer a view to the rear gardens.” Deo indicated the narrow, multi-paned windows above the wooden seat that had at one time been covered by plush pillows. “Unfortunately, these window casements are shot and need to be replaced. Too much water damage.”
“All right.”
Deo leaned against the wall next to the window seat. “I was wondering if you might like a balcony outside your bedroom. I can take out the window seat, replace the windows with French doors, and put a balcony across the rear to overlook the garden. Nothing too big, just enough for a small table and chairs. You’ve got a bit of a harbor view and the sunset should be spectacular from here.”
“Oh,” Nita whispered. “That would be wonderful.”
“Okay, then. I’ll bring by a catalog so you can pick out the doors.”
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“You choose something. You know what suits the house.” Nita started to sit on the window seat, but Deo stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Dusty. You’ll get your good clothes dirty. Hold on a second.”
Deo pulled a navy blue bandanna from her back pocket and wiped off the window seat. “There.”
“Thank you.” Nita fl ushed at the attention. “The gardens are going to need work.”
“If you want a professional landscaper, I can suggest someone. Pia is really good too, if you just want ideas.”
“I’ll ask Pia when I get ready.”
“So…do you want to take a look at the roof?” Deo asked.
Nita tilted her head back against the wall. “Not really. Whatever you’re doing up there, I’m sure it’s what needs to be done.”
Deo grinned. “Trusting.”
“About some things.” Nita studied Deo’s face. “How are you doing?”
“I’m happy with the way things are coming along. No big surprises yet.”
“I didn’t mean the house.”
Deo shifted and looked out the window. “I’m fi ne.”
“You look tired.”
“I shouldn’t go out to play on work nights.”
Nita pushed aside the fl eeting image of Deo in bed with a woman.
“Did you get into trouble or do you always have a police escort home?”
“One drink too many. It’s a small town, and the police really do serve as well as protect.”
“I’m glad.” Nita knew she shouldn’t push, but from the way Deo’s hand was balled into a fi st and the rigid way she held her body, she was more than tired. She was hurting. “Is it because you told me about your brother?”
“What?” Deo asked in a raspy voice.
“The reason that you’re so upset?”
Deo looked down at Nita, her eyes too shuttered for Nita to read.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Nita stood up. Deo was very close, just inches away. Her legs
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trembled and it was hard to catch a breath. “We don’t have to talk about it.” She skimmed Deo’s forearm with her fi ngers. “Perhaps with Pia. If you talk about it, a little bit, whenever you can, after a while it might not hurt so much.”
“There are better remedies,” Deo said darkly.
“Drinking only works for an hour or two, and the payback is hell.”
Nita smiled tremulously as something raw and dangerous surfaced in Deo’s eyes. A wave of heat engulfed her, and she made no move to escape.
“This works every time.” Deo grasped Nita by the shoulders and kissed her, pushing her back until she was pressed against the wall with Deo’s weight upon her.
Nita wrapped both arms around Deo’s shoulders and opened to her, absorbing her hunger through every pore. Her body ignited and she moaned. Deo caressed her breasts as she delved inside her mouth and Nita shuddered. She wanted Deo inside, so badly she was ready to beg.
Fill me, I’m starving. So hungry. So empty.
Deo broke the kiss and buried her face in Nita’s hair. “Nita. I’m going crazy for you. It’s nuts.”
“I know,” Nita gasped. “Maybe we just need to burn it out of our systems.” She slid her hand down Deo’s back and cupped Deo’s ass, pulling her hard into the vee between her legs. The jolt of pressure was exhilarating. “I can’t stop thinking of you inside me.”
Deo groaned. “Let’s go to my place. Now. If I don’t touch you I’m going to end up punching walls.”
Nita grabbed Deo’s hand and pressed it between her legs. “Touch me now.”
“Nita,” Deo gasped. She kissed Nita’s neck, her jaw, her mouth.
“We can’t. Not here.”
“Just a second. Only take a second,” Nita urged, opening the waistband of her slacks. “God, I need you.”
“Nita…wait.” Deo shivered, her lips against Nita’s ear. “I want more than a two minute fuck.”
Sylvia’s voice sliced through her mind. Let me touch you, baby.
It’ll only take a second. Let me make you come. You know I love a fast fuck.
“Oh my God,” Nita whispered. Sylvia pushing her against the wall in the stairwell, her hand inside her scrubs, inside her, thrusting
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deep, fast, until she was coming, coming and crying and wanting more.
Sylvia taking her in a frenzy after they’d been forced to spend the evening pretending they were mere acquaintances. Sylvia had taught her that the hunger was all there was, and a moment’s satisfaction was all she would ever have. “My God, I can’t do this again.”
Nita pulled away, needing to brace one arm against the wall to steady herself. She couldn’t look at Deo. “Please. Give me a minute.
Just…please go.”
“Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”
“I can’t.”
“Christ, you were just begging me to fuck you. What happened?”
“I came to my senses.”
Deo grit her teeth. She wanted to grab Nita and shake her, or kiss her until she went soft and hot in her arms again. “Bullshit. What happened? Do what again? Is this about her?” When Nita didn’t answer, Deo’s head pounded with anger and the remnants of raging lust. “Jesus, what the fuck did she do to you?”
Nita shook her head. “It wasn’t her. It was me. I let her.”
“Let her do what? Teach you a minute was all you could have?”
“A minute is all I want.”
“Fuck that. That was all she was willing to give you.” Deo cupped Nita’s chin in her hand and forced Nita to look at her. “I don’t mind a quick, hard fuck. In fact, every time I see you that’s exactly what I want.” She rubbed her thumb over Nita’s mouth. “But it’s going to take more than that to burn you out of my head. All night, remember? That’s the deal. That’s what I want.”
“One night?” Nita whispered, closing her slacks with trembling hands.
Deo kissed her. Long enough and hard enough to bring back the need, then she eased away. “That’s what I said.”
Nita’s body ached. Sylvia’s face, her voice, the touch of her hands shimmered through her memory. When she met Deo’s intense eyes, the heat seared the other images away. “Touch me. Touch me so I know it’s you.”
“I’ll make sure you know who it is,” Deo murmured. Then she cupped Nita’s face in her palms and kissed her again, slowly, deeply, tracing her forehead, her cheekbones, her jaw with the tips of her fi ngers. She caressed her until Nita relaxed against her body, her frenzy
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turned to yearning. “That’s better. Now remember that.”
Nita rested her cheek against Deo’s shoulder as her heart pounded wildly against Deo’s breast. “I will.”
“Good. What time do you get off work tonight?”
“With luck, seven.”
“I’ll be there.”
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Nita pushed open the examining room door and smiled at Joey Torres, her heart lurching just a little at her fi rst glimpse of the dark eyes and rakish grin that were so like Deo’s. She nodded to Pia, who leaned against one end of the examining table. “Hi Joey. You must really rate, having your physical therapist come with you to get your sutures out.”
Pia ruffl ed Joey’s hair. “He’s a big baby, and since my mother is tied up, I promised I’d come hold his hand.”
“She’s lying,” Joey protested. “She just doesn’t trust me to tell her your decision about when I can go back to work.”
“It’s not me!” Pia objected. “It’s Deo!”
“Yeah, and you always side with her!”
“Mmm hmm,” Nita said, half listening to the sibling banter as she released the Velcro straps on Joey’s splint. The door opened behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see Sally. She hesitated for just a second, Joey’s hand cradled in hers. Deo stepped a few feet into the room and slid both hands into the pockets of her work pants.
She appeared the slightest bit uneasy.
“Yo, Deo,” Joey said. “Just in time!”
“Oh good, I was afraid I’d missed the party.” For all her bantering tone, Deo regarded Nita seriously. “Randy said I could come back. Is that okay?”
“It’s fi ne.” Nita shifted slightly so Deo was out of her fi eld of vision and refocused on Joey’s hand. She couldn’t quite concentrate when Deo was in sight. “The incisions look excellent. We’ll get your sutures out, but you’re still not ready to go without the splint.”
Behind her, Deo groaned. “So he still needs to sit around on his ass doing paperwork?”
Nita smiled but didn’t look at her. “I’m afraid so.”
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“What a deal,” Deo muttered.
“Joey,” Nita said, “do you want to lie down while I remove the sutures?”
“Nah, I’m fi ne.”
While Nita removed Joey’s sutures, she discussed his therapy plan with Pia. The entire time she worked, she was aware of Deo peering over her shoulder. Every now and then, warm breath wafted across the side of her neck, and by the time she fi nished, her entire body tingled.
“There you go,” Nita said. “Let me see you in a month, Joey. Keep up the program that Pia outlines for you, and I think we’ll be able to get you into a smaller splint then. Pia, are you good with that timing?”
“So far. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.” Pia slung her arm around Joey’s shoulder and kissed his cheek. “You were so brave.”
“Cut it out,” he complained, but he was grinning.
Pia laughed. “Come on, I’ll take you for ice cream.”
Deo snorted. “Is he going to get a balloon, too?”
“When you stop at the desk to make your next appointment,” Nita said gravely, “Randy will give you a lollipop.”
“Cool,” Joey said, jumping down from the table.
“Be sure to bring him back to work,” Deo grumbled to Pia. “We’ve still got plenty of ordering for him to do.”
“Don’t worry, boss,” Pia said, patting Deo’s cheek. “I’ll deliver him in an hour or so.”
Nita straightened after fi nishing her chart note and discovered that the room was empty except for Deo. The door to the hall was closed and they were alone. Deo watched her from a foot away, the expression in her dark eyes even more intense than usual. Refl exively, Nita took a step back and her hips bumped into the examining table. “I didn’t expect you.”
“I know.” Deo stepped closer. “How’s your day going?”
“All right. Fine. Busy.”
“Mine too. Except I can’t concentrate because I keep thinking about kissing you.”
Nita held the chart up between them, feeling the beginnings of panic. “Don’t touch me.”
“Why not?” Deo asked, her voice low and husky.
“Because I’m working and I can’t do this here.”
“Do what?” Deo frowned.
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“We can’t…” Nita glanced at the door. It wasn’t locked. “Anyone can come in. I can’t.”
“Nita, it’s okay.” Deo eased back. “I just wanted to see you. I’m not going to try anything.”
“I’m sorry. I just…” Nita grasped Deo’s hand. “I’m glad to see you.”
“Remember what I told you this morning—what I think about every time I see you?”
Nita nodded. I have nothing against a quick, hard fuck. In fact, every time I see you that’s what I want.
“Just because I want my hands on you doesn’t mean I’m going to force you,” Deo said.
“You wouldn’t be forcing me,” Nita whispered. Deo’s hand was hot, so hot. She could feel Deo’s fi ngers brushing over her breasts, twisting her nipples, teasing between her thighs. She ached and her breath shuddered in her chest. She wouldn’t say no. “You wouldn’t have to.”
“But it’s not what you want, is it?”
“No. Not here.”
“I know.” Deo freed her fi ngers from Nita’s grip. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”
“You haven’t.” Nita smiled shakily. She couldn’t pretend that Deo’s interest, her attraction, didn’t feel good. It did. It felt wonderful.
“I’m glad you came by. I’m glad you wanted to see me.”
Deo grinned. “Good. So, I’ll be back at seven. I’m taking you to dinner.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. I know this little restaurant. Very private, great food. You’ll like it.”
“Pretty sure of yourself.”
“About some things.” For a moment, Deo looked uncertain. “I will see you tonight, right?”
“Yes.” When Deo started to turn away, Nita grabbed her hand again and stopped her. Then she kissed her. She had wanted to kiss her since the instant she’d seen her, but she had been afraid. Afraid of where it would lead. Afraid of losing control. Afraid of the wanting overpowering her reason. But Deo hadn’t pushed her, and now she wasn’t afraid. Deo’s lips were soft and warm, her tongue a gentle sigh
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in Nita’s mouth. Desire blossomed full and rich in her depths, and she welcomed it. Far sooner than she wanted, she drew away. “See you at seven.”
“Hell, Nita. If I think about that while I’m up on the roof, I’ll fall off.” Deo’s chest rose and fell rapidly and her eyes glittered with arousal.
Nita tapped Deo’s chest with one fi nger. “Then don’t think about it.”
“Yeah, right. I won’t breathe, either.”
Laughing, Nita pushed her toward the door. “Go. Stop distracting me.”
Deo opened the door, then grinned over her shoulder. “Don’t lie.
You like it, right?”
Maybe, Nita thought, maybe I do. Shaking her head, she pointed to the hallway. “Go. ”
With a laugh, Deo disappeared.
❖
Deo wiped the sweat from her face with the bottom of her T-shirt, then clambered down the scaffold and headed around the side of the house into the front yard. Pia and Joey ambled toward her from the street.
“Two hours,” Deo said. “You can eat a lot ice cream in two hours.”
“Oh, stop being such a tyrant,” Pia said. “I got him back in plenty of time to do all the paperwork you need. Besides, it’s my mother’s birthday party this weekend and we had to pick out a present.”
“The list of the paint and drywall we need is in the kitchen,” Deo said to Joey. “We have to get the orders faxed out today.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Joey said, giving a mock salute. He dodged as Deo tried to swat him and hurried off laughing.
“You’re coming to the party, right?” Pia said.
Deo looked away.
“You have to.”
“I know.” Deo sighed. “I’ll stop by for a few minutes, okay?”
“My mother adores you, and she’ll be heartbroken if you don’t come. My father will keep an eye on how much your father’s drinking.
• 176 •
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It will be okay.” Pia slid an arm around Deo’s waist. “And I need you there. Otherwise, I’ll drown in testosterone.”
Deo laughed. “What about KT? Won’t she be there?”
“She’s going to try, but she’s on call the night before, and sometimes she doesn’t get out when she expects to. Besides,” Pia nudged Deo’s hip with hers, “KT makes my bones melt, but she rates right up there with my brothers on the macho scale. She’ll probably spend the afternoon talking sports with Joey and Antonio.”
“What do you think I’m going to be doing? Discussing fl oral arrangements?”
“At least I can count on you to hang with me.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll come.”
“You can always bring a date.”
Deo rolled her eyes. “Yeah right.”
“Still seeing Allie?”
“Not that way. We’re friends, that’s it.” Knowing where the conversation was headed, Deo tried to extricate herself from Pia’s grasp. “Look, I have to get back to work.”
“Uh-huh,” Pia said, grabbing the bottom of Deo’s T-shirt and twisting it in her hand. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing. Not a thing.”
“You looked just like this when you were up to your eyebrows in Calley O’Reilly a week before she was supposed to marry Jimmy Jones. You didn’t want me to know you were fooling with her because you knew I’d kick your ass.”
“She was a dyke,” Deo protested. “She didn’t marry him, did she?
And now she has a pregnant wife and so does Jimmy. It all worked out just fi ne.”
“That’s not the point. Jimmy wanted to kill you.” Pia dragged Deo over to the porch and pulled her down onto the steps “You couldn’t hide the good stuff from me then, and you still can’t. Who is she?”
Deo wanted to say no one, because technically it was true. She and Nita hadn’t slept together and they certainly weren’t dating. But denying her didn’t feel right. “I’m sort of in the middle of this…thing, right now. It’s just temporary.”
Pia frowned. “A temporary thing. Defi ne thing.”
“Jesus, Pia. Gimme a break, will you. I have to go back to work.”
“You’re the boss. You should be sitting in a lounge chair under a
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tree telling the boys what to do. You can spare me fi fteen minutes.” Pia rested her hand on Deo’s leg. “You look like shit, by the way. What’s going on?”
“I just had a rough night.” Deo stared hard at a sliver of blue water that was visible between two houses across the street. By day, the harbor looked beautiful, by night, its dark surface refl ected her tormented memories. “I told Nita about Gabe, and it kind of twisted me up. That’s all.”
Pia took Deo’s hand and drew it into her lap. “You told Nita.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re seeing Nita?”
“Not exactly,” Deo said quietly.
“Sleeping with her?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean? Heavy petting?”
Deo laughed. “We kind of have this thing.”
“You said that already, sweetie. Your vocabulary is a little lacking today.”
“I can’t get her out of my head, and if I don’t get her into bed soon I’m going to do more than fall off the roof.”
Pia squeezed Deo’s hand. “I thought there was something when I saw the way she looked at you this afternoon.”
“What way?” Deo studied Pia intently.
“When you fi rst walked in she got really still, for just a second, and looked at you…how should I say this. Like she wanted to swallow you whole.”
Deo groaned.
“How long has this thing been going on?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe since the fi rst time I saw her.”
“Uh-oh.”
Deo closed her eyes. “You got that right.”
Pia kissed Deo’s cheek. “She’s beautiful. And I really like her.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Deo, sweetheart,” Pia murmured. “If you told her about Gabe, then this is like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. You know that, right?”
“I’m not like you, Pia. I don’t do relationships.”
“I know.” Pia stood up and dusted off the back of her slacks, then
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smiled at Deo. “Of course, you’ve never had any reason to before.
Bring her to the party this weekend.”
“No fucking way.”
“Never say never,” Pia called back over her shoulder. “Love you.”
“Yeah,” Deo muttered, wondering how it was Pia always got her to tell her everything. Even the things she didn’t want to admit to herself.
❖
“Can you believe it?” Tory said to Nita as they walked up the hall together, leaning into the examining rooms and turning off the lights as they went. “We’re actually done at a decent hour. Both of us.”
“I think this is the fi rst time that’s happened in almost two months.”
Nita shrugged out of her lab coat and stepped into her offi ce to hang it on the coat tree. She had an hour before she was due to meet Deo, and she was inordinately pleased that she could go home and change into something more casual than what she wore to work. It seemed foolish, because they weren’t actually having a date.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m going to make the most of it.”
Tory waited while Nita collected her bag. “I’m going to fi nd Reese and make her take me out to dinner. How about you? And don’t tell me you’re going to stay home and read a book.”
Nita fl ushed, imagining herself saying, I’m meeting a woman for sex. “I’m having dinner with Deo. To talk about the house.”
“Ah. A business dinner.”
“Yes,” Nita said quickly. It was a business dinner of sorts. They were going to deal with the unfi nished business between them. Clear the air. Scratch the itch that had been driving them crazy. Driving her crazy, at any rate. She still wasn’t certain why Deo would bother when there had to be any number of women who would likely volunteer to scratch her anywhere she needed it.
“I hope she’s taking you to Porto’s. It’s her cousin’s restaurant.
Really hard to get into during the season.”
“I’m beginning to think that Deo has a family member available to fi ll every need.” Nita laughed as she and Tory entered the deserted waiting area. Randy was still behind the reception counter working on the computer.
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“Don’t stay too late,” Tory called to him.
He waved. “Don’t worry. I’m out of here in fi ve minutes. I can still catch the last hour of the tea dance.”
Tory held the door open for Nita, then followed her out into the parking lot. “I hope you have a great time tonight.”
“It’s not a date,” Nita clarifi ed.
“I haven’t forgotten that conversation we had about a certain gorgeous someone you weren’t really attracted to,” Tory teased gently.
“Oh God,” Nita said, stopping by her car. “I don’t know why I’m pretending with you. I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m doing with her.”
“Maybe that’s good,” Tory said. “Maybe it’s better not to have expectations, either good or bad. That way, whatever happens will just be true.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Nita whispered as she slid into her car.
She rolled down her window and waved as Tory unlocked her Jeep.
“Have fun with your sheriff.”
Tory grinned. “That’s my plan.”
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CHAPTER NINETEEN
The station house was empty except for Gladys, sitting behind the semi-circular counter that held several computer screens and the radio equipment.
“Hi Gladys,” Tory said. “Reese around somewhere?”
“In the offi ce,” Gladys replied, inclining her head toward the closed door behind her. “I hope you came to kidnap her.”
“You’re reading my mind.”
“Good, because as much as I love her, I’m getting tired of her company.”
“I’ll take her off your hands for tonight, at least.” Tory saw by the large plain-faced clock on the wall that it was closing in on six-thirty.
Gladys usually left two hours earlier. “Shouldn’t you be getting out of here too?”
“I will, as soon as one of the boys shows up to relieve me.”
Tory wagged her fi nger as she pushed through the wooden gate and threaded her way between the desks towards the chief’s offi ce. “I know everyone’s working overtime, but I’m counting on you to set a good example for this crew.”
“You know damn well that if Reese works eighteen hours a day so will everyone else, even if she doesn’t tell them to.”
“Well I’m going to take care of that problem right now. She won’t be back tonight.”
“Good.”
Tory tapped on the door which said Nelson Parker in bold black letters and walked into the unadorned ten-by-twelve-foot offi ce. Reese was behind the desk, her tie askew and her eyes red rimmed. She looked more harried than tired.
“Hello darling.”
Reese dropped her pen and leaned back in her chair, a welcoming smile on her face. “This is a nice surprise.”
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“Busy?”
“I can probably spare you a minute.”
“Oh, you think so?” Tory circled the desk, grasped the arms of Reese’s swivel chair, and kissed her. Once certain that she had Reese’s attention, she slid onto her lap and wrapped her arms around Reese’s neck. Reese gripped her waist, groaning softly as Tory slowly and thoroughly explored her mouth. After a minute, Tory realized her plan to seduce her lover into leaving work was about to backfi re. They hadn’t made love in a few days, and the kiss was quickly getting away from her and turning into something far more serious. Reese felt so good, her body so tight and hard, her lips so soft, so hot. Tory wasn’t thinking about dinner anymore, she was thinking about Reese’s mouth on her, teasing her until she was too helpless to do anything except come. Tory pulled back, breathing hard.
“I think I need more than a minute.”
“Christ,” Reese muttered. “Kiss me again like that and I’m not even going to need thirty seconds.”
Tory laughed and massaged Reese’s shoulders while gently rolling her hips in Reese’s lap. “I have every intention of kissing you again like that.” She brushed a quick kiss over Reese’s mouth. “In fact, I’m going to do a lot more than that. After you take me to dinner.”
Reese growled and buried her face in Tory’s neck. As she bit slowly on the muscle that shadowed the pounding pulse in Tory’s neck, she skated both hands up Tory’s sides and over her breasts. Tory gasped, feeling herself get wet. Twisting her fi ngers through Reese’s hair, she dropped her head back and closed her eyes.
“Don’t get me too excited, darling, please,” Tory whispered, rocking her ass harder into Reese’s crotch.
“Why should I be the only one going crazy?” Reese grunted. She found Tory’s nipple and pinched rapidly.
“Oh God, Reese…don’t. You know how much that makes me want to come.”
Reese tugged Tory’s earlobe with her teeth, then skimmed the tip of her tongue along the shell of her ear. “I love it when you need to come. I love the way you rub against me, the way your breath catches in your throat. I love the small sounds you make when you start to swell and pound inside, almost like it hurts, but I know it doesn’t.”
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“Stop it.” Tory pushed Reese’s hands away. “That’s so wonderful I can’t stand it.”
Laughing, Reese wrapped her arms around Tory’s waist and kissed her throat. “Didn’t you come here to seduce me?”
“Into taking me to dinner. I wasn’t planning on having an orgasm in your offi ce.” Panting softly, Tory rested her cheek against Reese’s shoulder. “Sex was supposed to be dessert.”
“Let’s make it the appetizer. Then we’ll pick up the baby and get takeout.”
“Yes,” Tory murmured, nuzzling Reese’s neck. “Yes, soon. I just need a minute to settle down so Gladys doesn’t take one look at me and know what we’ve been doing.”
“Don’t settle down too much,” Reese warned, stroking Tory’s hip.
“I’m taking you straight home to bed.”
“Mmm,” Tory sighed. “Will you make love to me until I scream?”
Reese’s expression darkened and her voice dropped impossibly low. “Until you scream for me to stop.”
No longer caring about anything except giving herself over to the connection she shared with Reese and no one else, Tory rose, her legs shaking as she clutched Reese’s hand. “Now. Take me home now. I need you.”
❖
When Deo’s phone rang at quarter to seven, her stomach sank.
Nita was calling to cancel. She’d worried all day, despite their brief conversation during the afternoon, that in the cool light of day Nita would change her mind. It was one thing to give in to passion in the heat of the moment, and quite another to view it as something you wanted, something you wanted with another person, and to allow it to happen.
Truth be told, she was nervous herself. Usually when she ended up in bed with a woman it was because she clicked with her by chance—
she wanted company, and so did her bedmate, or she was twisted up inside, running on adrenaline, needing release, and a woman was there, offering a few hours of pleasure. She’d never thought about a woman the way she thought about Nita, day in and day out, remembering the
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way she looked or something she’d said or the slightest touch. She never thought about a woman and wanted her enough to say, Be with me tonight.
“Hello?”
“Deo, it’s Nita.”
Deo held her breath.
After a moment of silence, Nita said, “Are you there?”
“Are you canceling?”
“Do you want me to?” Nita said softly.
“No. No, I don’t.”
“I got done early and I’m home. Can you pick me up here?”
The tightness in Deo’s chest eased. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.
Do you mind walking from there? It’s not far.”
“That would be nice. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Deo disconnected, shoved the phone into her pocket, and grabbed her keys. She wanted to get there, get to Nita, before something happened to change everything. Rather than fi ght traffi c, she swung around the far West End and drove up 6 faster than she should have until she could cut back into town. She parked on a side street around the corner from Nita’s and hurried down to Commercial. When she rounded the corner, she slowed. Nita waited on the sidewalk in front of her house. She had changed into casual black slacks with low heels and a cream colored silk blouse. Her hair was loose and the same brisk wind that lifted her hair in thick dark waves molded the silk to her body, outlining her breasts. Deo imagined the weight of Nita’s breasts in her hands and stumbled. Just at that moment, Nita turned in her direction.
Her face softened as she laughed.
“Hi,” Deo said.
“Good evening.” Nita looked Deo up and down. Tonight, loafers replaced her work boots, and her navy blue polo shirt and tight blue jeans left nothing about her muscular body to the imagination. On impulse, she took Deo’s hand. “You look great.”
“So do you.” Deo kissed her lightly. “Better than great.”
“I’m starving,” Nita whispered, afraid if they didn’t move soon she would simply pull Deo down the path behind them and into her apartment. And then all pretense that they were doing anything other than preparing to vent their pent-up sexual frustration would be lost.
She wanted her, and she couldn’t hide it. What she saw in Deo’s eyes
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Winds of Fortune
convinced her she wasn’t alone. “Are we still going to dinner?”
“Yes.” Deo’s voice was hoarse. “We are.”
Nita nodded and fell into step as Deo led the way. At just before seven, the sun still held some heat and the ocean breeze was welcome.
The streets were crowded, the atmosphere jubilant, and Nita realized she hadn’t been on a date—an evening out with a woman whom she found attractive and interesting—in years. Swiftly, she reminded herself that this wasn’t a date. She couldn’t allow herself to think otherwise.
“Are we going to Porto’s?”
Deo looked surprised. “Yes. You know it?”
Nita shook her head. “No, but Tory said it’s wonderful. That your family owns it.”
“My aunt and uncle on my father’s side.”
“What if I told you I wasn’t going to sleep with you tonight.”
Deo’s pace didn’t slow. “I’d tell you to try the lobster fra diavlo.
It’s the house special.” She stopped as they turned a corner into one of the narrow side streets and pulled Nita around to face her. She kissed her, more deliberately than she had a few minutes before. “I’d tell you that I like to look at you. I think you’re beautiful.” She cradled Nita’s face and kissed her again, leaning into her until their bodies just barely touched. “I’d tell you that I want to make love to you so much I hurt, all the time, but if all you want is dinner, we’ll sit and talk over glasses of port until my cousin throws us out. Then I’ll walk you home and say good night.” Deo kissed her again, tracing her tongue inside Nita’s lower lip. Nita tasted sweet and warm. Then she pulled back and caressed Nita’s shoulders and down her arms. “So what are you telling me?”
“The very fi rst time I saw you I imagined you touching me.” Nita stroked Deo’s face. “And every time since. I imagined it, but I didn’t want it. I don’t know what I want tonight.”
“Try the lobster fra diavlo.” Deo started walking again, Nita’s hand fi rmly in hers.
❖
Lying on her stomach with Reese stretched out along her back, Tory thrust her hips up and moaned when Reese rocked against her.
Reese’s cheek was damp against the back of her neck, and Reese’s grip
• 185 •
RADCLY fFE
on her hands was so tight her fi ngers ached. The weight of Reese’s body pinning her down was at once comforting and exciting. Tory held her breath, listening to Reese’s labored gasps, her own arousal at a fever pitch. Just when she was certain Reese would climax, Reese lifted up and away.
“Don’t stop, darling, I want you to…oh God.” Tory lost the words as Reese cupped her from behind, alternately entering and then stroking her. As Tory hurtled toward orgasm, she was dimly aware of Reese pressing rhythmically against her hip and whispering her name. “Inside me,” Tory moaned, “inside me…be inside me when I come.”
With a muffl ed cry, Reese pushed into her. As Tory slipped into orgasm, she sensed Reese follow. She held onto the pleasure as long as she could, sliding up and down Reese’s fi ngers, milking the rippling contractions until she collapsed into a boneless puddle. Reese groaned and rolled off. Tory spooned her backside into the curve of Reese’s stomach and sighed with contentment.
“I hate to be unoriginal,” Tory murmured, “but that was so good.”
Reese chuckled and moved Tory’s hair aside to kiss her neck.
“Sorry it was so fast. I can’t seem to wait these days.”
“It wasn’t too fast.” Tory turned onto her back and cupped Reese’s jaw. “I don’t want slow and easy. I want to feel you everywhere at once, as deep inside as you can get. I need that too.” She kissed her. “Slow and easy will come when we’re both ready.”
“I need you all the time.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“Being away from you shook me up,” Reese said, her expression distant. “I was too busy all the time to really think about it, but nothing felt right. Inside. You and Reggie, you’re my reason for everything.”
“Before you had us, being a marine was everything.” Tory draped her leg over Reese’s and curled closer. “You wouldn’t have come here fi ve years ago if you hadn’t been looking for something else you needed.
I like to think it was us.”
“Believe me, it was.”
“Maybe it was so hard over there because you expected to feel the way you did about being a marine before you had us. I bet lots of the other marines felt just like you, being away from their families. You just never had any practice at it before.”
• 186 •
Winds of Fortune
“I don’t think my father ever felt the way I did,” Reese said fl atly.
“You can’t be sure of that, but if it matters, maybe you should ask Kate.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not him.” Reese pulled Tory on top of her and kissed her. “Maybe I’m not the marine I thought I was, but I’m so much more because of you.”
“Darling, you are a fi ne marine. And a wonderful lover. And a great mother. And a perfect partner.” Tory kissed Reese’s throat, then her breast, then down the center of her abdomen. She rubbed her cheek against Reese’s lower belly. “I adore you.”
Reese combed her fi ngers through Tory’s hair and lifted her hips to guide Tory between her thighs. “Take me slow and easy this time.”
“I’d love to,” Tory whispered, brushing her lips over Reese’s clitoris.
Reese closed her eyes and sighed as Tory drew her between her lips. Light as bright as rocket fl ares burst behind her eyelids as Tory tongued her, and the heat spreading through her belly and thighs was like the desert, scorching her. But this time she burned not with uncertainty and apprehension, but with the sure and certain knowledge of who she was and where she belonged.
Reese’s cell phone rang, and Reese cursed. She was seconds from orgasm. When she tried to twist and reach for it, Tory pressed a hand against her belly and held her down, relentlessly teasing her with her mouth and tongue.
“Baby,” Reese moaned as the phone continued to ring and the pressure became so intense her stomach spasmed. She was so close and she needed the release so badly. The phone kept ringing. “Baby I should…” Tory pushed down on her stomach and entered her with her other hand and Reese went rigid. In the next breath, she came.
When Reese opened her eyes, her face was pillowed against Tory’s breasts. She didn’t remember Tory moving, didn’t remember Tory pulling her into her arms. She didn’t remember starting to cry.
“It’s all right, darling,” Tory soothed, stroking Reese’s face. “I promise, everything is all right.”
“I love you.”
“Mmm, I know. That’s my everything.”
“The phone—I should check…”
• 187 •
RADCLY fFE
“I know.” Tory leaned across Reese for the phone. With one arm around Reese’s shoulders, she handed it to her.
Still trembling from her orgasm, Reese checked the last number.
“It’s Bri.”
“Delegate. I’m not done with you yet.”
Grinning, Reese called back. “Conlon.” Listening, she tensed and sat up. “I’ll be right there.”
“What is it?” Tory asked as Reese disconnected and stood up.
“Are you on call tonight?”
“No, Nita. Why?”
Reese grabbed her pants and pulled them on. “Because I might need someone to give an offi cial time of death. Bri’s got medics working on someone right now.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Tory got out of bed and pulled on her robe.
“No. Go ahead and get the baby. It might take a while to sort this out. I’ll call Nita if I need her.”
Tory kissed Reese. “You okay?”
“A lot better than I was an hour ago.” Reese kissed her again and hurried toward the hall. “You should go ahead and have dinner. I love you.”
“Be careful.” Tory sank down on the side of the bed, her body still craving Reese’s touch. Despite missing her already, her heart felt lighter.
Reese had cried— something she almost never did. Tory couldn’t help but feel that these tears were just what they both needed.
❖
“So?” Deo said. “What do you think?”
“I want to marry your aunt,” Nita said, after savoring another bite of fra diavlo. “God, this is good.”
Deo laughed. “Told you.”
“I defi nitely made the right choice.”
“You mean dinner over wild sex with me?” Deo teased.
Nita pretended to look thoughtful. “Well, I don’t suppose there are many women who could…cook like this.”
“That’s cruel.” Deo reached across the table and took Nita’s hand.
• 188 •
RADCLY fFE
dashing off her fi ndings, she handed it back. “Do you need me for anything else here, Sheriff?”
“No. The rest of it will have to wait until they get him to Hyannis.
Thanks for coming out.”
“No problem. I’m sorry it turned out the way it did.”
“Me too.” Reese guided Nita up the muddy slope with a hand on her elbow. “You need a ride home?”
“That would be great. Thanks.” Nita sluiced water from her face with both hands. Her clothes were soaked, and her silk blouse clung to her in cold sheets.
“I’ll have Bri drive you.” Reese lifted up the yellow crime scene tape which Bri and Allie had hastily erected around the scene when they answered the call. “I’ve got a jacket in the car. You must be freezing.”
“I’ll take you up on tha—” Nita fell silent as Deo materialized from the small crowd of onlookers that had gathered outside the tape while she had been working. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought you might need a ride,” Deo said. “This weather is getting worse by the second.”
“According to all reports,” Reese said, “we’re looking at a lot worse in the next fi ve days. Big storm coming up the coast.”
“Bad for fi shing,” Deo said, glancing out toward the harbor before moving closer to Nita. “My truck’s just up the street.”
Nita turned to Reese. “Thanks, Sheriff, but your offi cer doesn’t need to taxi me anywhere. Deo can take me home.”
“All right. Thanks again.” Reese touched her cap and headed back down to the scene.
“How long have you been here?” Nita asked, aware of people watching her as she made her way up the beach.
“A few minutes.” Deo slipped her arm around Nita’s waist. “By the time I got to my truck it was really coming down, and I knew you were walking. Do you mind?”
“I wish you hadn’t seen this. Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“No bad memories?”
Deo hesitated. “I don’t remember all that much.” She opened the Defender for Nita and held the door as she climbed in, then went around and got behind the wheel. “I remember people shouting and I remember being cold. So cold that I thought I’d never get warm.”
• 194 •
Winds of Fortune
Nita slid as close as she could and put her hand on Deo’s thigh.
“You’re cold now, too. And soaked.”
“I’m used to it.” Deo started the truck and pulled out onto Commercial Street. “The lights were in my eyes, red and blue and white fl ashes, and I couldn’t see anyone clearly, just shapes. It almost seemed as if I might be dreaming. I hoped I was. One of those bad dreams that feels so real while you’re having it, and then you wake up and you’re so happy it was just a dream.” She took a shaky breath. “But I didn’t wake up. Gabe was gone and everything changed.”
“I’m sorry. So sorry,” Nita murmured, stroking Deo’s hand where she clenched the steering wheel.
“Thanks,” Deo said roughly, grasping Nita’s hand and threading her fi ngers through Nita’s. “My condo is right around the corner. It might be July, but I think a fi re would be nice right about now.” She glanced at Nita. “After a hot shower.”
Nita’s stomach quivered and she forgot about being cautious. The specter of death, so fi nal, so brutal, still hovered around her. She was cold and sad and Deo offered her heat and a moment’s forgetting. It was enough.
“Yes.” She leaned across the space between them and kissed Deo’s neck. “That sounds perfect.”
❖
“First things fi rst,” Deo said, closing the door to her condo. She pointed across the living room, which was furnished with a tan sofa, matching chair, and a low glass table in front of a slate stone fi replace.
“The bedroom is up those stairs—fi rst door on the right. You can take your clothes off in there.”
Nita raised an eyebrow.
“Your wet clothes.” Deo pulled her own dripping polo shirt from her jeans. “I’ll bring you something dry. You can shower in my bathroom up there. I’ll use the one down here.”
“If you take that shirt off now,” Nita warned, “neither one of us is getting a shower.”
Deo hesitated, her shirt pulled high enough to expose her stomach and the curve of her breasts. “That sounds like a dare.”
“No,” Nita murmured, smoothing her palm over Deo’s stomach.
• 195 •
RADCLY fFE
“That’s a promise. God, I love your body.”
Deo shivered as Nita continued to caress her. “Nita. I’m wound up like a top.”
“Really.” Nita wrapped her arms around Deo’s neck and kissed her. They were both soaked, but the heat of Deo’s mouth and the promise of her touch warmed her all the way through. When Deo ran both hands down her back and then cupped her ass, she felt herself surge dangerously toward the boiling point. She didn’t want it to be that way, fast and furious and desperate. Not tonight. Not for this one night.
Tonight she needed it to be different. Despite all her instincts crying out to sate her desire, and quickly, she drew back. “I’m going to get out of these clothes.”
Breathing hard, Deo nodded wordlessly.
“Maybe you can start the fi re after you shower.” Nita kissed Deo lightly.
“Fire’s already started,” Deo muttered.
Laughing, Nita headed for the bedroom. When she found it, she closed the door, half wishing that Deo had followed and grateful that she hadn’t. Her hands were shaking as she unbuttoned her blouse. They were going to have sex. She knew that. She knew that Deo knew it.
It wouldn’t be the fi rst time she had kept an appointment for sex. She had gone places to have sex before, so many times she’d lost count.
Roadside motels. Borrowed apartments. Abandoned on-call rooms.
Assignations for pleasure that left her feeling empty and alone.
Sylvia was almost always there fi rst, and she would often take Nita the instant Nita walked in—a second’s frantic coupling against the door and then Sylvia would be inside her or on her knees, claiming her with her mouth. Nita was usually already so aroused just from anticipating Sylvia’s onslaught, hungering for the connection during the days and weeks when they had no contact—not even a phone call—
that she would rarely be able to hold back for more than a minute or two. She would come screaming, all the while wondering why she felt no satisfaction. Once was never enough for either of them, and for half an hour or forty-fi ve minutes Sylvia drove her relentlessly through one orgasm after another until Nita was too weak to move. All the while, Sylvia insisted that Nita was hers, that Nita was everything she needed, everything she wanted—her heart and her soul. And Nita let herself believe.
• 196 •
Winds of Fortune
Sighing, Nita slipped into the shower and prayed that the heat would penetrate to the cold place deep inside. She didn’t want to think of Sylvia, not tonight, not ever. When she stepped out, she found a thick white robe folded on the vanity and wondered when Deo had placed it there. She wondered, too, if Deo had looked at her through the steam-streaked glass doors and ached for her the way she ached. She fi nger-combed her hair and pulled on the robe, tying it loosely at the waist.
Halfway down the stairs, Nita felt the heat. Inside a fi re blazed while outside the storm raged, wind driving the rain with such force it sounded as if stones pelted against the skylights and glass doors. Deo lounged in the chair in front of the fi replace, two glasses of wine on the table beside her. Her short black robe came to mid-thigh and dipped into the valley between her legs. Trying to pretend she wasn’t going out of her mind waiting for Deo to touch her, Nita strolled to the chair, leaned down, and kissed Deo.
“Thanks for the robe. And the fi re.”
Deo tilted her head back and held out her hand. “You’re welcome.”
She tugged Nita around to sit on her lap and nuzzled her neck. “I love it when your hair is down.”
“I can’t do anything else when it’s wet like this, but I like the way it feels.” Nita caressed Deo’s neck and traced the curve of Deo’s breast underneath the material that slanted between her breasts. “I like the way you feel too.”
Nita lowered her head to kiss her just as Deo tilted her face up, and they came together with a hungry clash of mouths and tongues.
Deo’s hands were on her shoulders, then her waist, then inside her robe stroking her belly and her hip. Feasting on Deo’s mouth, answering her teasing tongue with strokes of her own, Nita was very quickly almost as far gone as she had been that night outside the bar when she hadn’t been able to stop herself from coming in Deo’s arms. Another few minutes of Deo’s tongue thrusting inside her mouth or the barest brush of Deo’s fi nger between her thighs, and she was going to climax.
“It’s too soon,” Nita gasped. “God, too soon.”
“You need to tell me now,” Deo murmured, parting Nita’s robe a few inches and kissing the center of her chest, “if you don’t want to make love.” She groaned as Nita’s fi ngertips glided over her nipple.
“And you might need to get off my lap, too.”
“I understand. I’m sorry.” Nita gripped the wide arms of the chair
• 197 •
RADCLY fFE
and pushed herself off Deo’s lap. Watching Deo’s expression falter, she quickly knelt between Deo’s legs and pushed the robe open with both hands. Leaning to kiss the inside of Deo’s thigh, she murmured,
“Maybe I’ll be safer down here.”
“I don’t think so.” Deo caressed Nita’s face, her fi ngers shaking.
“I’m really in trouble.”
“No you’re not.” Gently, Nita spread her fi ngers along the taut muscles that framed the vee of Deo’s sex and kissed her. She tasted sweet and rich and Nita licked delicately along the furled folds to the prominent ridge in their center. When she found a spot that made Deo twitch and moan, she played with it, pressing with the very tip of her tongue. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth and around.
“Please,” Deo whispered, her legs twisting as her muscles clenched tighter and tighter. “Please stop. I can’t take you doing that any more.
I’ll come right in your mouth.”
Nita gripped Deo’s thighs fi rmly to stop her from pulling away.
Deo was hard, throbbing, hot, and Nita needed more. She sucked, sliding Deo’s clitoris in and out between her lips, and Deo groaned, a broken, hopeless, unbelievably beautiful sound. Reaching up, Nita caressed her tense belly and said with her mouth against Deo’s clit, “I can’t believe how hard you are. Stop fi ghting it. I want you to come.”
When Nita slipped her fi ngers just inside and went back to sucking her, Deo jerked forward, clutching Nita’s shoulders. “I’m going to come. Don’t stop. Jesus. Jesus, lick right there, oh…just don’t stop.”
Nita wrapped both arms around Deo’s waist as Deo rode her mouth. She wished she could still her own heartbeat so nothing interfered with her absorbing every sound and movement of Deo’s body as she climaxed. Finally, Deo groaned and collapsed back into the chair. Nita couldn’t let her go, but covered her sex with light kisses until Deo pushed feebly at her face.
“Give me a minute,” Deo murmured. “Too sensitive right now.”
“You are so amazing.” Nita gazed up the length of Deo’s body. Deo was golden in the fi relight, her skin shining with sweat and pleasure.
Nita was aware of time passing, of the night hurtling toward dawn, and she needed more. Carefully, she eased inside her, moaning when Deo closed down around her fi ngers. “That’s it. Beautiful.”
“Nita, God, what are you doing? I don’t…oh God…I can’t…”
“Shh,” Nita soothed, pulling out and pushing back in a little at a
• 198 •
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time, carefully avoiding Deo’s swollen clitoris. “Just relax. Just hold me inside. You don’t have to do anything.”
Deo stared down at Nita helplessly. “Feels so good.”
“I can tell.” Nita smiled, watching Deo’s face as she slowly fucked her. “I want to make you come all night.”
“Can’t,” Deo muttered. “Want to, but…”
“Stroke your clit. Show me what you like.” Nita kept her tempo slow, her strokes gentle.
“Let me make you come,” Deo protested, grasping Nita’s wrist.
“Not yet. I’ll come fast, and I don’t want to. I want this. Please. I want you.”
Deo relaxed and pressed two fi ngers against the base of her clit.
“It will take me a while.”
“That’s all right. I’ve got all night.” Nita winced inwardly at the irony. All night. All night, and she needed every minute and so many more. Her clitoris pounded, and she was wet, so wet. But it wasn’t her orgasm she wanted as she watched Deo circle and stroke and pinch her thickened clitoris. Deo’s pleasure was sweeter than anything she’d ever experienced. “Does it feel good?”
“Yes,” Deo hissed through gritted teeth. “Getting so hard again.”
“Are you going to come?”
“I…don’t…know.”
Nita matched her strokes to the speed of Deo’s hand, picking up as Deo circled faster. Minutes passed and Deo moaned, her motions frantic. Sensing Deo’s need, Nita massaged Deo’s other opening with her free hand and slid a fi nger through the fi rm muscle.
“Oh God,” Deo cried, her body bowing. “Oh God you’re going to make me come.”
“Yes,” Nita whispered, thrusting with both hands as Deo fi nished herself with a low, tortured moan. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Deo’s head fell back against the chair, her arms dropping limply to her sides, her breasts and stomach heaving as she fought to breathe.
Nita gently withdrew and pillowed her cheek against Deo’s stomach.
“When you come, I feel like something inside me is going to burst.
You’re so beautiful I can’t stand it.”
“I want us to go to bed,” Deo groaned. “I want to touch you. Please Nita. Please let me touch you.”
“I need you to.” Nita kissed Deo’s stomach. “I want you to.”
• 199 •
RADCLY fFE
Deo reached for the wine beside them and handed a glass to Nita.
She drank deeply from her own and rose, hoping her legs would carry her upstairs. She gripped Nita’s hand and drew her along beside her to the stairs. “I’ve never come like that before.”
“No?” Nita circled Deo’s waist as they climbed the stairs. “I’ve never made love to anyone that way before. I’m so hungry for you.”
“You sound sorry,” Deo whispered, pushing open her bedroom door. Just inside, she turned on a small table lamp that left most of the room in shadow.
Nita shook her head fi rmly. “No. Not sorry at all.”
Deo emptied her wine glass and put it on the bedside table. She held out her hand for Nita’s and placed it beside her own. Then she untied her robe and let it fall. She watched Nita’s gaze travel over her body and her nipples hardened at the heat in Nita’s eyes. “Will you take off your robe?”
“Yes.” Nita untied the sash and shrugged it from her shoulders, willing her body to quiet.
“Oh,” Deo murmured, resting her hands on Nita’s shoulders. “So much more beautiful than I dreamed.” She traced her thumbs along Nita’s collarbones and then smoothed her palms over Nita’s chest until she cupped her breasts. Nita’s nipples were hard, dark shadows against her smooth light brown skin. Lifting Nita’s breasts in her palms as she had imagined so many times, she licked fi rst one nipple, then the other.
Nita grabbed Deo’s arms to steady herself as her thighs trembled.
“Suck,” she implored hoarsely. “Suck them.”
Deo wrapped one arm around Nita’s waist and pulled her backwards toward the bed, carrying her down with her as she settled onto her back.
Nita braced herself above Deo’s body as Deo continued to torment her breasts with her teeth and lips and tongue. It was too much, too good.
Nita straddled Deo’s thigh, riding her clitoris over the hard muscle.
“I’m going to come,” Nita warned, “I’m going to come. Oh God, Deo.”
“Wait,” Deo murmured, rolling Nita over and easing her leg from between Nita’s, breaking their contact. “Wait if you can. If you can’t, it’s okay.”
Nita’s breath sobbed in and out of her chest and her hips thrashed helplessly. “Touch me. Will you please touch me?”
• 200 •
Winds of Fortune
Deo leaned on one elbow and kissed her, caressing her breasts and her belly and lightly between her thighs, her fi ngertips gliding over Nita’s clitoris and then away, again and again. Nita dug her fi ngernails into Deo’s back, clinging to her as she struggled to hold back the feral need that beat at her for release. Deo’s tongue was soft and gentle, her callused hands everywhere, painting her body with exquisite tenderness.
Gradually, the fi re Deo kindled transformed into a deep consuming blaze that spread through her blood and muscles, obliterating everything in its path.
“I’m coming,” Nita sighed, surrendering as her orgasm rolled over her, leaving nothing behind but pure satisfaction. As she peaked, Deo fi lled her and she jolted into another, harder climax. Wild with unexpected pleasure, she screamed Deo’s name.
• 201 •
• 202 •
Winds of Fortune
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As Nita roused from sleep, she registered the totally foreign sensation of lying on her back with a warm body curved along her side. Before her still cloudy mind could decipher what that meant, she became aware of something even more extraordinary. Her skin tingled from her throat to her knees and three distinct points of pleasure beat in time to her heartbeat. Her nipples were painfully, delightfully hard, and her clitoris was disturbingly but quite wonderfully tense.
“I know you’re awake,” Deo murmured, circling Nita’s nipple with her tongue.
“What are you doing?” Nita breathed, keeping her eyes closed. She held very still. Whatever was happening, she didn’t want it to stop.
“Fulfi lling a fantasy.” Deo sucked the other nipple then trailed her tongue down the center of Nita’s body and dipped into her navel.
“I want to taste every part of your body. I’m about halfway there.” Deo kissed the top of the crisp, neatly trimmed black triangle at the base of Nita’s abdomen and smoothed her palm along the sleek length of Nita’s thigh. “You’re unspeakably beautiful.”
Nita lifted her hips, she couldn’t help it. “I’m unspeakably aroused.”
Deo inched lower, and Nita felt fi rst a teasing breath and then Deo’s lips slide smoothly down her clitoris. “Oh my God.”
“Mmm.” Deo lingered a second, sucking gently, before shifting her body between Nita’s legs. She licked the inside of her thighs, then kissed her way lower. “Very sexy knees.”
“Deo,” Nita moaned, pushing herself up on her elbows. She opened her eyes, and everything clenched at the sight of Deo reclining between her legs, naked and gorgeous in the misty dawn light. Her wide shoulders dipped down to a shallow valley below the rise of her round, fi rm ass. Nita had a swift vision of rubbing her sex over Deo’s
• 203 •
RADCLY fFE
ass until she came. Her clitoris twitched and she moaned again. “Just looking at you makes me wet.”
“Good. I want to make you as crazy as you make me.”
Deo’s gaze met hers, and the hunger in her eyes made Nita’s stomach twist. She pressed three fi ngers to her clitoris and felt it protrude. God, she was so excited. “Can you see what you’ve done?”
“I said you were beautiful.” Deo massaged the tops of Nita’s feet, then stroked upward over her calves and fi nally pushed her legs apart until her thighs were stretched tight. She lowered her head and opened Nita with her thumbs. “And you’re very ready.”
“Wait,” Nita said urgently, pressing her palm to Deo’s cheek just before Deo reached her with her mouth. “I won’t be able to keep from coming if you put your mouth on me now.”
“That’s okay.”
“No it’s not. I want you on top of me.” Nita tugged Deo’s hair. “I want you in my mouth while you lick me. Now. Come on.”
Deo’s expression turned ravenous, and her lips parted in a near growl. Swiftly she reversed her position and lowered herself above Nita’s face.
“Don’t touch me yet,” Nita murmured, wrapping her arms around the outside of Deo’s muscular thighs. Then she delicately licked her.
Deo jerked and Nita smiled. “Don’t touch me until I tell you that you can.”
“Nita,” Deo snarled, rubbing her cheek over Nita’s sex. “You’re so wet for me.”
“I’m not the only who’s wet,” Nita whispered. She stroked the fl at of her tongue between Deo’s lips and over the surface of her exposed clitoris. Deo’s thighs trembled. “You like that, don’t you?”
“You know I love it.” Deo kissed Nita’s clitoris.
“Deo, don’t.”
“I want to suck you.”
“No,” Nita gasped. “Not yet.” She fl uttered her tongue under Deo’s clitoris and Deo swelled and pulsed. “Tell me if you’re going to come.”
“A minute—not much longer. I’m getting close. Oh Jesus—I’m not kidding.”
Nita licked her again and teased the spot she had discovered the night before. Deo shivered and writhed and Nita felt another kiss brush
• 204 •
Winds of Fortune
over the top of her clitoris, harder this time. It felt so good. “Careful. I don’t want to come.”
“Yes you do,” Deo groaned. “Please. Let me suck you.”
“No.” Nita struggled to hold back the pleasure that threatened to burst free and concentrated on Deo, licking and kissing and teasing until Deo was so hard and so wet she knew Deo would come any second if she didn’t stop. She pulled her mouth away. “Quick. Come up here—I want to kiss you.”
Deo swung around and drove her thigh between Nita’s legs at the same time as she plunged her tongue into Nita’s mouth. Nita gripped Deo’s hair in both hands and arched to meet her thrusts. She sucked on Deo’s tongue as Deo pounded between her legs. The pressure of Deo’s leg hammering into her clitoris was too much.
“Oh, I can’t hold it any more!” Nita felt herself shattering and jerked Deo’s head back, frantically searching her face until she found her eyes. “I’m coming. Come with me. Please, oh please.”
“Yes, fuck, yes,” Deo cried.
Nita’s breath fl ed as Deo kissed her and her body erupted. Then there was nothing, nothing except pleasure and Deo.
❖
Nita stroked Deo’s hair as Deo slept on top of her, her face in the curve of Nita’s neck and her thigh still cradled against Nita’s center. The weight of her body was far from uncomfortable. Nita marveled at the strange sensation of contentment that came from holding a woman who had just orgasmed in her arms so thoroughly, so completely, that she had drifted off in the aftermath. She felt powerful, she felt protective, she felt humbled. Deo’s trust frightened her, but the intimacy terrifi ed her even more. She had learned to do without this kind of connection.
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