Winds Of Fortune Part 18

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 o.r.g.a.s.ms 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 m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e, 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.

y Deo pushed the whiskey gla.s.s back and forth on the bar in a slow half circle, back and forth, back and forth, replaying the message in her mind.

"Deo, h.e.l.lo. 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 s.e.x, 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 pa.s.sion 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 s.p.a.ce 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 gla.s.s down her throat and then held out the empty toward the bartender, who slid a * 137 *

RADCLY fFE 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 f.u.c.king 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 f.u.c.k to make you forget all the s.h.i.+t 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 c.l.i.t and circled slowly.

"And you know it will be good."

"Oh, Jesus." Deo stiffened all over as her c.l.i.t 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 f.u.c.k 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 "d.a.m.n it, Nita, if you're p.i.s.sed 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 f.u.c.k.

"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 pa.s.sageway 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s were a tauntingly soft counterpoint to her hard stomach and thighs. G.o.d, 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 a.s.s and dug her fi ngers in, urging Nita to pump faster between her spread thighs.

When Nita yanked Deo's s.h.i.+rt from her jeans, shoved both hands up underneath, and squeezed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Deo's c.l.i.t 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."

"f.u.c.k 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 s.e.x and, throwing back her head, she shouted triumphantly.

"Yes."

Nita o.r.g.a.s.med 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 l.u.s.t for Deo, but she'd ended up a.s.suaging it with Deo's body.

"I'm sorry," Nita murmured, pus.h.i.+ng 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, pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 s.e.x 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 f.u.c.king 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?"

"G.o.d, 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."