Love on the Night Shift

by Radclyffe

  “Jesus.” Grady bucked, the muscles in her stomach jumping, shoulders and chest straining. “That feels so damn good.”

  “I have to feel you.” Blaise pushed back on her knees and grabbed the waistband of Grady’s pants on either side of her hips. “Help me.”

  Grady half sat up, shoving her pants down, and Blaise finished pulling them off her legs.

  “Yes,” Blaise muttered again, sliding one thigh between Grady’s and meeting her body-to-body. Grady’s leg slipped between hers, sliding through her wetness, pressing just where she needed the pressure. The showers of pleasure became torrential, and she filled to bursting. Blaise gripped Grady’s shoulders and canted her pelvis, increasing the friction.

  When Grady gripped her hips and pulled her more tightly to her thigh, Blaise moaned. “You’ll make me come.”

  “Don’t hold back.” Grady’s eyes blazed, rocking into her, faster and harder. “You feel so good. Look so amazing. I want to feel you come. Please.”

  Blaise pushed upright and Grady grasped her hands, their fingers locking again. Blaise stared down, held Grady’s gaze, rocking, thrusting, every muscle braced in anticipation. The storm coiled and snapped within her, and the power built. When the dam broke, she threw her head back, heard her own strangled cry, and arched as the orgasm tore through her. Before the last tremor shattered deep inside, she was falling and Grady was there, closing her in her arms, holding her tight to her chest.

  “You’re amazing,” Grady murmured. “Incredible.”

  Blaise buried her face in the curve of Grady’s shoulder, catching her breath. She grasped for words but none came.

  “Blaise?” Grady said after a minute. “You okay?”

  “Not sure. I think I’ve lost my mind.”

  Grady chuckled. “That had nothing to do with your mind.”

  Blaise laughed unsteadily, awareness slowly returning. She was wrapped around Grady, their legs entwined, Grady’s arms around her, their breasts, their bellies, every possible place touching. Desire, never quite abated, stirred again.

  “You do something to me,” Blaise muttered.

  “Something good?” Grady whispered against her ear.

  “Something amazing, scary as hell.”

  “As long as it’s good.”

  “Oh, very good.” Blaise managed to push herself up on her elbow and kissed her. “I don’t usually…I can’t remember…I’ve never actually been so out of control before.”

  Grady grinned. “That’s the nicest thing you could’ve said to me.”

  “Oh, really?” She leaned forward again and nipped at Grady’s lip. “Easy to please, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, not at all.” Grady rolled her over so deftly, Blaise hadn’t realized she was moving until she was on her back and Grady rested on her elbows and knees above her, caging her in, dark eyes aflame again.

  Grady brushed a hand down the center of Blaise’s body and cupped between her thighs. Blaise caught her breath. She was swollen and wet and, oh my God, still ready.

  “Grady, go slow.” Blaise gasped. “You feel too good.”

  “How is that possible?” Grady kissed her and stroked through her wetness.

  “You’ll make me come,” Blaise warned.

  “I will.” Grady slipped inside her, and Blaise lifted to take her deeper. “Right now.”

  Biting her lip, fighting the first tendrils of pleasure bursting free, Blaise slid her palm down Grady’s flank, over her hip, and between her legs. She found her clitoris, full and firm and slick.

  “Oh fuck.” Grady’s head snapped back, and she strained for control, fighting to hold on until Blaise came. Every time she stroked inside her, Blaise echoed her movements, sliding down to tease her with short shallow thrusts and returning to her clitoris. Grady gritted her teeth, but she was losing the battle. She was going to come all over, and there was no stopping it.

  “Blaise,” she gasped. “I’m close.”

  Blaise caught Grady’s nipple in her mouth and sucked, fingers finding just the right spot on the shaft of Grady’s clitoris. Grady came in hard, sharp thrusts, her orgasm streaming down her thighs and burning along her spine. Deep inside, Blaise closed around her, fluttering in swift, rapid contractions, joining her at the peak and beyond.

  * * *

  Blaise drifted on a lazy current of contentment, a cool breeze blowing across her naked back and a riot of birdsong floating in through the open windows. Beneath the lingering pleasure, an overwhelming sense of peace slowly penetrated her decidedly stuporous brain. Minutes passed as strength slowly returned to her lifeless limbs along with the realization that she still sprawled bonelessly atop Grady. When she tried to shift her weight aside, Grady’s arms tightened around her.

  “You’re good,” Grady murmured, kissing the side of her neck.

  “I’m heavy.”

  Grady laughed, and the sound reverberated into Blaise’s chest along with a little thrill of excitement. The slow easy play of Grady’s hands up and down her back soothed and aroused her at the same time.

  Discovering she could actually move a little, Blaise managed to lift her head and kissed Grady, taking her time about it. “You make a really nice pillow.”

  Grady grinned, her usually sharp, always a little hungry, eyes looking hazy and decidedly self-satisfied.

  “Proud of yourself, aren’t you?” Blaise murmured, kissing the edge of her jaw.

  Grady’s grin widened. “Just a little. You?”

  “Extremely.” Blaise nipped at her lip. Catching a memory of herself astride Grady, riding her to the edge of orgasm, she felt her cheeks heat. “Although a little surprised. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so…”

  “Wanton?” Grady stroked the curve of her breast and cupped her fullness. “Wild and abandoned?”

  Blaise narrowed her eyes. “Don’t get carried away.”

  “Too late,” Grady murmured, kissing her with such unexpected tenderness Blaise trembled.

  The passion she’d expected. Heat had simmered too close to the surface, too nearly out of control, every time Grady had looked at her from the moment they’d met. But the other side of her—the gentle regard—still made her ache. She stroked Grady’s face. “You know, you’re always surprising me.”

  “In a good way?”

  “Mm. Very good.”

  “You didn’t surprise me,” Grady said. “I knew you were going to destroy me. And you did.”

  Blaise caught her breath. “I won’t pretend I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t expect…” She dragged a hand through her hair, smiling wryly. “I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t let myself really think about it too much, or I might not have come over here at all.”

  “I’m eternally grateful that you did,” Grady said. “I don’t know how much longer I could have waited without exploding.”

  “I’ve never actually believed in the concept of chemistry,” Blaise said, “but I also never experienced anything—or anyone—like being with you this way. I don’t usually lose my mind quite so thoroughly.”

  “I don’t usually surrender every morsel of control, either. I think I should thank you for that,” Grady said. “I feel…freaking amazing.”

  Blaise said, “I’m not sure I could have gone to the places I went if you hadn’t made me feel so safe. As if everything I did was what you wanted.”

  “It was, and you are everything I want.” Grady took a long breath and framed Blaise’s face with both hands. “You couldn’t have said anything more perfect to me. Trusting me, that’s a gift. So thank you.”

  Blaise propped her chin in her hand, still stretched out on Grady and, since Grady didn’t seem to mind, having no desire to move. Their legs entwined, their bodies touching almost everywhere, couldn’t have felt more natural. That made no sense, but she couldn’t argue with the rightness of it.

  “I believed you wanted me, and that let me be…free. That was a gift too.” Blaise shook her head. “I don’t know how everything can feel
so right.”

  “I know you enough to know what I feel whenever I think of you,” Grady said. “Whenever I touch you. Blaise, I’m—”

  “Grady,” Blaise said, the tightness in her chest not denial, but the fear of wanting too much to hear what Grady was going to say. “Too soon.”

  “If you think so,” Grady said, “but I don’t.”

  Blaise sighed and settled back into her arms, resting her cheek on Grady’s chest, listening to her heart beat. “How did you come to be so sure all the time?”

  “I’m not, not really. It’s just armor—I learned to seem sure even when I wasn’t.”

  “How so?” Blaise went back to drawing aimless circles on Grady’s chest as Grady stroked her hair lazily.

  “My life has mostly been about getting to where I am now—goal-oriented, no matter what it cost.”

  “Why so driven, then?” Blaise asked, fascinated by the way Grady’s stomach tightened when she moved her hand lower.

  Grady covered Blaise’s hand when she would’ve stroked lower. “If you want me to talk, you can’t do that.”

  Blaise smiled to herself. She could wait a little while, but she planned to do that again soon.

  “I grew up believing achievement was a symbol of worth—my worth, I guess—and that what I accomplished was what mattered most.”

  “Mattered to your family, you mean?”

  “I think I mentioned before that we were a competitive lot. It’s pretty much the family legacy, living up to the family name.” Grady laughed, but there was no pleasure in it. “It’s funny, when I met Flann, I thought we’d have a lot in common. I knew she came from a family of doctors, so I figured we’d be a lot alike. But we weren’t.”

  Blaise stilled. “I didn’t know that your family were doctors too.”

  “That’s one of the nice things about being here,” Grady said. “It’s the first time I haven’t actually been following in my father’s and brother’s footsteps. It’s nice not to—”

  Blaise sat up quickly, a cold chill making her tremble. She pulled the sheet up and covered herself. “What did you just say?”

  “What?” Grady’s brow furrowed.

  “What did you just say, about your brother.” Blaise gripped the thin cotton sheet so hard her fingers ached.

  “Oh,” Grady said, looking momentarily confused as Blaise edged over to the side of the bed, “he’s quite a bit older than me, so growing up I hero-worshipped him at first, and then sibling rivalry kicked in. I went from wanting to be like him to wanting to beat him.” She snorted. “Every McClure for generations probably went through the same thing. We all went to the same medical school and had residencies at the same hospitals, so every step of the way someone was comparing me to Gav.”

  “Gavin McClure.” Blaise fought down a bubble of horror, praying this was a nightmare and she’d waken in a moment. But she wouldn’t, would she. She slid from the bed and searched in the pile on the floor for her clothes.

  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool. Fool.

  “Blaise, what the hell are you doing?” Grady jumped out of bed, and Blaise flinched away, clutching her shirt to her chest.

  Stunned by the wide-eyed shock on Blaise’s face, Grady went statue still. She put her empty hands up, trying to look reassuring. “Talk to me, what’s happening?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I have to go.” Blaise pulled on her shirt and fumbled through the discarded clothes, found her pants and pulled them on, not even bothering with panties. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “The hell it doesn’t.” Grady yanked on her own pants. “A minute ago we were just talking—now you look like you’re ready to jump out the window.”

  “I have to go,” Blaise repeated, grabbing her shoes.

  “Wait, just wait. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “It doesn’t matter—it was just a mistake.”

  “What mistake?” The roaring in Grady’s head threatened to shatter her control, and she took a couple of deep breaths to steady her voice. “Us? Is that what has you in a panic?”

  Blaise snapped, “There is no us. There never was, and there never will be.”

  “You know that’s not true. You felt the connection, just like I did. I know you did. Jesus, Blaise—what’s wrong?”

  “This shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry.”

  Grady knew better than to touch her. She looked like she might come apart at any second, but she couldn’t let her just walk out. She edged around Blaise until she was standing between Blaise and the bedroom door. “At least tell me why. What did I do?”

  “You didn’t do anything. I did.” Blaise took a shuddering breath. How could she have been so blind? How could she have let herself be carried away by her need to be wanted again? God, she hadn’t learned a thing. “Please move.”

  “Just tell me why,” Grady said. “I deserve to hear what it is I’ve done. Give me a chance to make up for it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “You just have to believe me, that this can’t happen again.”

  Grady raked a hand through her hair. “Why? Why, Blaise?”

  If she hadn’t just been in Grady’s arms, if she hadn’t just opened herself to her, held her and been held by her, she would have had the strength to keep silent, but the pain in Grady’s eyes broke her. “Because your brother is Taylor’s father.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Grady braced her arm on the wall beside the door, the roaring in her head switching to silence so profound she was without thought. Blaise’s words, though, echoed through her entire body as if she’d been hollowed out and left to wither on a desert floor.

  “Gavin?” Grady said quietly. “Gavin is Taylor’s father?”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m sure?” Blaise said bitterly, still standing barefoot with her shoes in one hand, the top button of her shirt undone, her hair in disarray from where Grady had run her hands through it. Her eyes were bruised, not angry, but tinged with a weary sadness the depths of which Grady had only guessed at before.

  “Why would I ask you that?” Grady took a deep breath, hoping to settle her stomach and find some steady ground when the whole world tilted and swirled. She would never doubt Blaise’s word as to who had fathered her child, and even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t. She recalled the first time she’d seen Taylor in the pizza shop. How she’d thought Taylor looked familiar and at the time had assumed that was because she looked like Blaise. And she did. But there was something else, in the angle of her jaw, the tilt of her chin, the shape of her face—some hint of familiarity that she realized now was Gavin. “Of course you’re sure.”

  “That’s not what your brother said.” Blaise grimaced. “I’m sorry. I’m not going to talk about him—about this. Please, would you move so I can leave.”

  “He knows?”

  “He knew I was pregnant.” Blaise huffed, a look of disdain—aimed at herself, Grady thought—crossing her face. “I’m not sure what I thought to accomplish by telling him. We were practically strangers.”

  “You can’t mean he—”

  “Oh no. The only one responsible is me. He was a friend of my roommate’s boyfriend. I never saw him except when we’d all go to parties—he was so busy at the hospital, and I was a college student.” She shook her head. “But he paid attention to me, and I believed it was more than flirtation. Obviously, he didn’t.”

  “What happened?” Grady said softly. Blaise hardly seemed to know she was talking, and she didn’t want her to stop. She needed to hear, to understand. She couldn’t make sense of any of it. How could Gavin know he had a daughter? She didn’t know—no one in her family knew—and if he’d known there was a child, why hadn’t he mentioned Blaise or—God—married her? That thought staggered her. She did the math—she would have still been at home, about ready to head off to college when Taylor was conceived. Astute enough to pick up on something this major disturbing
the mask of familial tranquility. Gavin would have been finishing his fellowship. And he would have been engaged to Audrey then. No way could Blaise have known that.

  “Old story.” Blaise sighed. “I believed what I needed—wanted—to believe, and one night—well, the rest should be obvious.”

  “It’s an old story because at some point in our lives, we all do things in the moment that we’d like to change.”

  “I wouldn’t change the fact that I have Taylor,” Blaise said.

  “Of course not.”

  “I’m leaving now, Grady. If you care for me at all,” Blaise said, “you won’t tell your brother about her. Please, for her sake if not mine.”

  “But you just said you told him,” Grady protested. “If he knows—”

  “He doesn’t know there is a child, only that I was pregnant. As far as he knows, there was no child.”

  “You told him you weren’t going to go through with the pregnancy?” Grady made no judgment—Blaise had been, what, nineteen, twenty? No matter what age, she had every right to decide her own future.

  “No,” Blaise said coolly as she sidestepped Grady, who still hadn’t moved completely out of the doorway. “He told me I should terminate the pregnancy. To be precise, that he had no interest, even if it was his, in anything to do with a mistaken consequence of a casual encounter. So as far as he knows, Taylor does not exist.”

  The punch of disbelief hit Grady like a fist in the solar plexus. She’d walked in Gavin’s footprints her whole life, and for most of it, she’d been proud to do so. Right now, she was ashamed. When Blaise slipped past her, she didn’t call her back, didn’t have the strength to push her into revealing any more of the story that so obviously hurt her. The sound of the front door closing left her weak and unsteady, and she sagged against the wall, slowly sinking down until her arms dangled over her bent knees and her head tilted against the wall.

  An hour ago she’d thought her life had finally settled onto a path she hadn’t even known she’d needed, into a future she hadn’t known she wanted. A future she did want, desperately. She wanted Blaise, and yes, Taylor, to be part of that journey.