“Okay, I’d like to say that I don’t mean anything by that, but that would be a lie.”
“Why, Ms. Bartok, are you trying to seduce me?”
“God, yes.”
“I want you to. But . . .” Marissa waited until the waitress departed with Linda’s credit card to continue. “Maybe we should take it slow. Maybe we shouldn’t . . .”
“Only when you’re ready. I mean that.” Marissa saw Linda swallow with effort. “But if you think it’s easy not to get down on my knees right now and worship every inch of you, you’re wrong.”
A wave of heat ran up Marissa’s throat and she had to force herself to breathe. They were in Marissa’s car, listening to rain pelt on the roof, before Marissa could find enough breath—and brains—
to speak. “Before? When I said we should take it slow?”
A streetlight illuminated Linda’s face but even so, she looked drawn and intense. “Yes?”
Marissa navigated the broad boulevard before answering. “Do you think that maybe we could have a night of wild, abandoned, meaningless sex before we tried that slow thing?”
She turned into the hotel parking lot and found a spot near the front doors.
“No,” Linda said quietly.
“Oh.” Marissa blinked in surprise. Had she misread Linda’s interest? In the abstract Linda had wanted Marissa but faced with reality, maybe she wasn’t feeling that zing?
Linda reached across the car to turn off the engine. “Marissa.”
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The look in Linda’s eyes left Marissa again without words.
“I could never touch you, hold you, kiss you, make love to you and have it be meaningless. I love you. I am crazy in love with you.
Every moment with you has meaning and reason. I never want it any other way.”
Marissa’s mouth formed “oh” again but no sound came out.
Linda’s lips curved in the smile that had first caught Marissa’s attention. “How about a night of meaningful sex?”
The lights were on, all of them. Linda’s hands moved slowly over Marissa as she said, “I want to watch you.”
Marissa felt self-conscious for a moment then a sensual confidence surged inside her. She knew now that if she did not risk her heart again, she would regret it forever. She stepped back, hands at the buttons on her blouse, and whispered, “Then watch.”
Linda kept her hands on Marissa’s shoulders but made a wonderful sound as each button parted. When the last button was undone, Linda pushed the blouse off Marissa’s shoulders, her gaze so heavy with desire that it seemed as palpable as Linda’s hands on Marissa’s skin.
Her long arms wrapped around Marissa with ease and one hand mastered the hooks and eyes.
“Thank you,” Marissa murmured. She let her bra straps slip down her arms, her gaze not leaving Linda’s face. The obvious hunger in Linda’s eyes thrilled and aroused her.
“This has changed.” Linda ran one finger into the cleft between Marissa’s breasts. “Even more alluring.”
Looking down, Marissa watched Linda’s finger trace the outline of her bra, a new lacey frippery with underwires that felt like steel. She knew she would never be a swimsuit model, never be naturally shaped the way that Linda was, with high, firm and wonderfully round breasts. But she was over finding her breasts an unfair burden. Linda’s fingers, closing firmly on one swollen nipple, ended all debate.
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Linda kissed her when she gasped, arms winding her close.
They fell on the bed with Linda on the bottom and Marissa’s bra slipping to her elbows until Linda, with a noise a lot like a growl, pulled it out of the way.
“Watching?” Straddling Linda’s waist, Marissa coyly trailed her fingers over her breasts, then lightly stroked her nipples.
“Hell, yes.” Linda’s hips were moving as both hands slipped under the hem of Marissa’s skirt. “Oh . . . these thigh muscles are new.”
She’d never have Ocky’s long, lean legs but she was more than able to lift, tease and grind herself into Linda in response to the strokes of her hands. Then Linda’s hands were between their bodies, putting pressure and heat on the part of Marissa that had been aching for more than a year.
Shivering, she pressed herself against Linda’s fingers. “You make me feel wild.”
“That’s mutual, very mutual.” With an intense look, Linda quickly moved her hands back to Marissa’s nipples, tugging firmly to pull Marissa down to her. “Is this what you want, Marissa?”
“Yes.” The kiss was hot and deep and somewhere during it Marissa found herself on her back, squirming out of her skirt and pantyhose.
“You feel so good in my arms,” Linda said in her ear as one still denim-clad knee pushed Marissa’s legs apart. “So good against me.
I could spend a whole day just holding you. But not today.”
“No,” Marissa said. “Some other day.” Her entire body felt alive now. Ears, lips, knees, toes—all were tingling. She stretched against Linda’s body. To her surprise, Linda abruptly rolled off the bed.
“I want to feel your skin,” she said as she stripped off the sweater, then stepped out of her jeans.
A square of fabric, too small to be a handkerchief, fluttered to the floor half under the bed and Marissa leaned over to pick it up.
It was silk, in an unusual shade of blue. “Don’t lose this.”
“No, I keep that with me always.” Linda took the silk, then lightly touched it to Marissa’s face. “I was right. It’s the color of your eyes.”
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Marissa was lightheaded and she didn’t know if it was because of Linda’s words or the sight of her slipping off the rest of her clothes. Dizzied with emotion and longing, all Marissa could think about was how much she had missed the feel of Linda’s skin against her.
She reached for Linda as she returned to the bed, groaning as breasts, stomach and hips pressed together, as her arms went around Linda and Linda’s legs pushed hers open.
Leaning back slightly, Linda looked down the length of Marissa’s naked body. “There’s a valley in Spain where I sometimes stayed for the late summer. Covered in gold, the hills roll.” Her fingertips traced Marissa’s shoulder, along her upper arm, then into the crook of her elbow. “They swoop, they yield.”
Marissa was panting and it was getting harder and harder not to moan every time she breathed out.
“I would watch the sunset most nights and to me it was as if the earth mother was right there before my eyes.” Her fingers moved to Marissa’s ribs, then slowly swept over her belly and hip. “I would think that I’d never seen anything so womanly in my life.”
Marissa closed her eyes and gave herself to the magic Linda was working on her body.
“And then that first morning in Tahiti I woke before you did and you’d kicked off your covers. Your T-shirt was rucked up and you were all golden, curving and yielding, like those perfect, entrancing hills.”
Marissa forced her eyes open. Linda was watching her face. She moaned, then, and felt the light scratch of nails on the inside of her thighs.
“The perfect woman, right there before my eyes, and I watched you sleep and wanted you. Holding you is like gathering up all that is female in my arms. It fills me up to touch you.” She kissed Marissa softly on the lips.
Marissa shuddered as Linda’s hand finally slipped between her legs. “Oh, yes, there.”
“That’s right,” Linda said. “There.”
Marissa didn’t think even that magic night in Tahiti she had 247
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been as aroused and as aware of her own surrender to Linda’s sensuality. Linda moved inside her so easily at first, but those caresses grew more firm with each stroke. Linda was fully on top of her now, straddling one leg as her palm massaged outsid
e and fingers pleasured inside, deep inside.
Her arms suddenly limp, Marissa felt like the warm surf spreading in the sun over welcoming sand. She was tensing and melting at the same time, her body anchored to the bed by Linda’s while her mind soared and danced, held up by Linda’s whispers of adoration and desire.
“Open your eyes, Marissa, please.”
She managed, somehow, trembling on the edge of a feeling so unknown she feared she would shake apart. She saw those shining brown eyes, full of passion and tenderness. She looked deep and saw herself, the woman she was, captured there.
Linda was flushed and panting. “That’s right. Hold on and we’ll fly together. I’m here and I love you and—yes. God, yes.”
Release was so powerful, so intense, that Marissa burst into tears as her hips convulsed under Linda’s. She let go of the last of her hurt and the empty places it left were filled again with a brimming joy.
There were more tears after that, tears of wonder, of forgiveness and ecstasy. They gave way to laughter cut short by moans.
Later, exhausted, Marissa marveled that her own hands could bring so much pleasure to someone else.
In her head she heard her own voice saying, “We believe in love. We believe in romance. We believe in first meetings, second dates, third anniversaries and relationships that can last a lifetime.”
Aloud, she said, “I believe.”
Linda heaved a deep sigh. “In what?”
She managed to rise onto one elbow, which allowed her to gaze into Linda’s face. “No losers, no weepers.”
“Not here,” Linda said. “Not anymore.”
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“I think we can find the one hundred,” Marissa murmured, spooned close behind Linda.
“Hmm? What’s that?” The curve of Marissa’s arm over her ribs was warm and safe. Sleep beckoned insistently. To call it a full night of meaningful sex was no exaggeration.
“Compatibility score. We don’t know what ours is.”
“Don’t we?” Okay, Linda thought sleepily, she likes to talk after sex. I can get used to that.
After a sigh, Marissa said, “I think my very human computer does know, you’re right.” She snuggled closer. She sighed again, sounding drowsy. “My heart knows our score.”
“So does mine. Thank you.”
“For what?”
Linda rolled over so she could kiss Marissa one more time. The lights were now out but the glow of her hair and body were still palpable. “For tomorrow.”
Marissa kissed her back and burrowed her head into the hollow between Linda’s neck and shoulder. “And the day after that. All yours . . .”
She didn’t fear sleep, not these days, and with Marissa now breathing steady and deep, she knew she would wake up wanting to stay right there, within reach of Marissa’s warmth and love.
“Dang it all.” Marissa patted her pockets. “I left my sunglasses on my desk upstairs.”
“Run up and get them.” Linda pulled forward again into the parking space. “The groceries are just greens and some fruit—
they’ll wait.”
“In that case,” Marissa said shyly. “Maybe you’d like to come up and meet everybody. At least those who haven’t left yet?”
“I’d love to.” Linda was already out of the car.
Marissa marveled at how right it had felt to find Linda waiting for her when she had left work. The past two weeks had been a series of days and nights that just got easier and easier. It seemed 249
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appropriate that since they were having dinner with her mother later at the club that Linda should meet the rest of the people that mattered in Marissa’s life.
“Heather, this is Linda.” Marissa watched the two women shake hands, then suddenly Ocky was there, with a welcoming, but cautious, expression on her face.
“Hey. It’s great to meet you. You two have big plans for the weekend?”
“A hike near Mt. Diablo,” Linda answered. Marissa knew her well enough now to see that Linda was aware she was being scruti-nized. “And a picnic, complete with small amounts of very good chocolate.”
“Sounds romantic.” Ocky kept on her ‘you’re still on probation’
face, which Marissa loved her for.
“It’s meant to be,” Linda answered. “Marissa makes courting her a lot of fun.”
Marissa blushed which made Linda look even more pleased with herself. Before they made it to Marissa’s office, Linda had met everybody it seemed. Her blush had begun to fade until, behind Linda’s back, she saw Bianca giving two big thumbs up. Finally, she got them into her office and was able to search her desk for her sunglasses.
“So this is where the Finders Keepers magic happens?”
“No—that’s in the server room. This is just a printer where I can pull results.”
“I filled out a questionnaire, you know.”
“You’re kidding.”
Linda shrugged. “It was the day after I made you breakfast. I didn’t have anything else to do.”
“Did you submit it?”
“Yeah. I thought, well, at the very least I could support your business.”
“You’re a client? Not anymore you aren’t.”
“Neither are you then.”
Grinning, Marissa agreed. “Done. I’ll erase us both from the system when I get back on Monday.”
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Linda picked up the bendy figure that held Marissa’s business cards. “Not even curious?”
“I really think that we should trust our feelings. I know how I feel about you. I don’t need a computer to agree with me.”
Linda pulled her close for a long, satisfying kiss. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay then, I don’t want to see it either. I want to do things the old-fashioned way. Make mistakes, have a few fights, make up and work things out, all because we’re in love and want the future together. Not because we’re perfect mates.”
“We are perfect mates.” Marissa sighed into the comfort of Linda’s arms.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. I do. Mind reading is one of the signs of our perfect matedness.”
Linda tickled her gently. “Ready to go?”
“Sure.” Marissa picked up her sunglasses and headed for the door. They were at the reception desk when she smacked herself on the forehead. “I’d forget my head if it weren’t velcroed on. My purse . . . be right back.”
She hurried through the office, threw herself down into her desk chair, flipped on her monitor and quickly keyed in her administrative override. About thirty seconds later she typed a query. In another thirty seconds the printer whirred into action, spitting out a single sheet.
For a moment her hand hovered over the paper, then she shoved it deep into the recycle pile. She made it as far as her office door before she hurried back to snatch the paper from the bin and quickly glance at the final score.
She smiled.
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Epilogue
Still rubbing a small towel over her face and neck, Marissa slipped out of her workout shoes and stripped off her sweat-soaked tank top. The gym wasn’t busy and only one other woman was in the process of changing.
She eased down onto the bench to work off her socks and noticed the shorter woman, who probably had a weight loss goal of thirty to fifty pounds, adding dots to the progress graphs she herself knew so well. Even from here she could see that the time spent on exercise had gone up over the last eight weeks, while the weight line had no variance at all. That was the pits.
Planning to shower when she got home—a long, luxurious shower with lots of emollients and conditioners—she pulled on a dry T-shirt and gathered up her things, careful to collect every last sock and sport bra. With a two-week Rocky
Mountain hike starting tomorrow, she did not want to return to find something in her locker had spawned a new species. Maybe she could get Linda to 252
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join her for their last shower in some time. She paused, for a moment, to savor that idea.
Her gym bag laden, she winked at her reflection, then shut the locker door. She was about to leave when she impulsively turned to the other woman. She waited until she received an inquiring look to speak. “I couldn’t help but notice your charts. Plateaus suck.
The worst I ever had I ended up changing the order of my—”
“Look, I know you mean well, but I don’t need any advice.”
The other woman frowned as she set her shoes into the locker.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I know what you—”
“What is it with women like you? You don’t have a clue.”
“Women like me?” Marissa echoed. She was sorry she had opened her mouth but she’d only wanted to help and encourage.
The other woman had obviously reached her frustration limit.
“Skinny bitches like you haven’t the first clue—”
Marissa couldn’t help it. She laughed in the woman’s face.
The other woman slammed her locker shut and would have stalked from the room but Marissa quickly grabbed the photograph tucked next to the mirror in her locker door and waved it at the woman.
“I’m sorry, but honest, look. This is me, on a beach in Tahiti, four years ago.”
With an exaggerated sigh, the woman looked at the photo. She gaped. “That’s you? You’re kidding.”
“It’s me. I keep it right here to remind me why I show up at this place. I read somewhere that even after you empty a fat cell it takes that sucker eighteen months to go away for good. I made my goal weight twelve months ago, so even now I know I can’t stop. Not yet.”
“How did you do it?” Obviously chagrinned, the woman said,
“I’m sorry I was rude, really. I’ve worked so hard and thin people are full of ideas they’ve never had to live with. They didn’t inherit my mother’s hips. I snipe about them to hide my envy.”
Marissa’s eyes stung with sympathetic tears. “I gave up the fad diets, got serious about regular exercise and stuck with it, year in 253
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