Desire by Starlight

by Radclyffe

  “Her name is Madison. We bumped into each other at a bar. She’d been driving all night and was pretty played out. I took her home. That’s all.”

  “Rescuing the damsel in distress.” Jenna nodded. “That seems to be your thing—taking care of people.”

  “You’re reading that all wrong.” Gard wanted her to know the truth—that she wasn’t anyone to look up to. “One thing I’m not is a hero.”

  “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”

  “I don’t want you laboring under any misconceptions about me.” Gard saw a shadow flicker in Jenna’s eyes, saw Jenna swallow a question, and she knew. She couldn’t escape her past, even here. “What have you heard?”

  “Nothing,” Jenna said.

  “Jenna,” Gard said, shaking her head.

  Jenna knelt in front of Gard’s chair and put both hands on her thighs. Her eyes were fiery. “Listen to me. Alice recognized your name and said there’d been some kind of trouble. She didn’t know the details.”

  Gard snorted. “I find that very hard to believe. Alice doesn’t look like anything gets by her. She told you I’d been in trouble with the law, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Because I don’t care.”

  “You would, sooner or later.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “And you don’t know me.”

  “I know you took care of me when I was hurt. You consoled me when I was sad. You make me laugh. You turn me on.”

  “How long are you going to be here?”

  “A few weeks,” Jenna said, but even as she did, she wondered if that was true. She had no obligations for the rest of the summer. She liked being at Birch Hill, and she liked being around Gard.

  “Then we don’t really need to know anything more about each other, do we,” Gard said.

  “Not really.”

  “So why don’t we leave things at that.”

  “That’s fine with me.” Jenna pushed upright. “I should go. Let you rest if you aren’t going to take time off.”

  “One more thing.” Gard stood, caught Jenna by the shoulder, and kissed her. She slipped her tongue into Jenna’s mouth and Jenna’s arms came hard around her neck. Jenna was electric in her arms, pressing into her, molding to every curve and hollow of her body, hips circling demandingly. When she caressed the rise of Jenna’s hip and squeezed her small tight butt, Jenna moaned and sucked on her tongue. The sound of her pleasure, the bite of her teeth, was a shot to the gut. Gard gasped and murmured against her mouth, “You came here because you wanted to kiss me.”

  “Cocky, aren’t you.” Jenna nipped at Gard’s lip, hard enough to make her wince. She tugged Gard’s shirt out of her pants and ran her nails over Gard’s stomach, just above the waistband of her pants.

  Gard flinched, her breath coming fast. “And you like to tease, don’t you?”

  Jenna’s mouth curved, luscious and ripe. “You have no idea.” She circled Gard’s navel with her fingertips, then pressed her palm hard against the tight muscles. “I want to make you work for your reward.”

  Gard jerked Jenna closer and pushed her thigh between Jenna’s legs. Jenna’s small gasp of surprise made her clit twitch. “I want to make you beg for yours.”

  “Never happen.”

  “Oh yeah?” Gard scraped her teeth along the underside of Jenna’s jaw, then sucked lightly at the delicate skin in the hollow at the base of her throat.

  “You’re slick but hardly irresistible.” Jenna shivered and knew from Gard’s satisfied chuckle her body had betrayed her. She couldn’t resist, didn’t even want to try. She threaded her fingers through Gard’s thick dark hair and forced Gard’s mouth harder against her throat. Gard sucked until her skin burned and she wanted Gard inside her right then, right there. She wanted it so much, she was about to fly apart into a thousand pieces. If she did, she’d never be able to glue the bits of herself back together again. She’d never be able to find the safe solid place where she controlled all her feelings.

  “Oh God, wait,” Jenna whispered.

  Gard stilled instantly, her open mouth pressed to the soft skin high between Jenna’s breasts. She trembled and Jenna stroked her hair.

  “I’m sorry,” Jenna said. “You get me so excited. Just…just let me settle a minute.”

  “Why?” Gard skated her good hand up Jenna’s side and cradled her breast. Jenna’s head fell back.

  “Because I think you could make me come just from kissing me.”

  “Maybe I want to.”

  Jenna laughed shakily. “God, you’re arrogant.”

  “If I had two good arms I’d pick you up right now, take you to bed, and shut you up.”

  “Would you?” Jenna pushed her hand up under Gard’s shirt, found the small, firm mound of her breast, and squeezed the tight nipple. Gard jerked, groaning deep in her chest, and the sound vibrated against Jenna’s palm. “Would you really?”

  “We need to take this out of the kitchen.”

  “Not tonight.” Jenna brushed Gard’s nipple lightly and trailed her fingertips down the center of Gard’s belly and out from beneath her shirt. “When we make love, I don’t want to think about anything except how hard you’re making me come. I’m not going to be able to do that until your arm is better.”

  “I’m not going to wait that long.” Gard eased away but kept her hand on Jenna’s hip. “I know you don’t want me to.”

  “You have no idea what I want you to do.” Jenna took a breath. Steadied herself. Got control. “Are we still on for five?”

  “Do women always do what you want?”

  “I never ask for anything they’re not willing to give.”

  “Is that the deal?”

  Jenna nodded. “Clean and simple.”

  “No strings.”

  “No strings.”

  Gard’s gaze bored into Jenna’s, the gray shimmering to midnight. “Five it is.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  When Jenna got home, she wasn’t in the mood to recap the evening, but Alice was sitting on the front porch in the semidark, barefoot in striped boxers and a short-sleeved white T-shirt. Even though the table lamp in the parlor behind her threw a crescent of pale yellow light onto the porch, Alice was mostly in shadow. Each time she rocked forward into the moonlight her face appeared, ghostly and beautiful.

  Jenna dropped into a rocker next to her and plucked at the bottom of the boxers. “Going native?”

  “Ha ha.” Alice rocked slowly and rattled the ice cubes in the rock glass she cradled in her right hand. “It’s so quiet here. Sometimes I think it’s wonderful, and the rest of the time terrifying. I’m not used to being so alone with myself.”

  “I know what you mean. It’s easy to feel lost, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think I could be happy here for very long.”

  “Not enough happening?” Jenna had spent the first seventeen years of her life desperate to escape a place very much like this, on the surface at least. She’d been convinced if she could make her way to the city, opportunity would abound and anonymity would be her protection. Now she knew that safety wasn’t a place, or even a person, but a state of mind. She’d carved her safety out of nothing, and guarded it with all her will.

  “I don’t miss the action,” Alice said, “at least not the way you think. Oh sure, I miss the easy access to the theater and good restaurants and first-run shopping. But it’s more personal than that. I’d slow down too much if I didn’t have all the competition around, pushing me just a little harder, just a little faster.” She laughed. “Maybe I’m not as much of a self-starter as I thought.”

  “Afraid you might lose your edge?”

  “Exactly. I guess my energy tends to synchronize with my environment.” She rocked a little faster. “Isn’t there a name for that?”

  “Yes, a very big one, and I don’t think you’d really like the analogy.” Jenna laughed. “You know—the cold-blooded crea
tures that stop moving below a certain temperature?”

  “Are you calling me a snake?”

  “Absolutely not. And I do know what you mean.”

  “But it’s not that way for you, is it?”

  Jenna hesitated, thinking over her day. “I can write anywhere. As for the rest of it—I haven’t made up my mind. I feel like I’ve lost a layer of skin up here, as if I’m closer to the air and the earth and—well, everything. And I’m not really sure I want to be.”

  “You mean you feel vulnerable.”

  Just the word made Jenna anxious. “Maybe.”

  “I take it you went over to Gard’s tonight.” Alice drained her glass and set it on the floor next to the rocker. “How is she?”

  “I think her injury is a little worse than she wants to let on, but she’ll be all right.”

  “I was wondering if you’d be back tonight.”

  “I almost wasn’t. If she hadn’t been hurt, I might’ve stayed.”

  “Moving a little fast, aren’t you?”

  “Hardly.” Jenna didn’t share every detail of her private life with Alice, but Alice knew her pattern. She most often slept with women she’d met at an industry meeting or business event. After an evening of conversation, enough to establish the unspoken agreement that one night was all she was available for, she’d have an enjoyable few hours of physical satisfaction. She hadn’t been with a woman she’d spent more than a superficial hour or two getting to know in months. Now that she thought about it, in years. Without consciously deciding, she’d limited her personal interactions to the wholly impersonal.

  “She’s not your usual type,” Alice said.

  “I don’t know about that. She’s intelligent, good-looking, sexy as sin.”

  “Uh-huh. No argument there.” Alice propped her bare feet up on the railing. Her legs were smooth and sleek, a fine ridge of muscle etched along the length of her thigh. “But that’s not what does it for you with her, is it? She’s under your skin. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone able to do that before.”

  Alice was right. Gard was under her skin. Suddenly restless, Jenna strode to the edge of the porch and wrapped her arm around a column, trying to see through the dense night beyond the faint circle of light. Everything she’d said to Alice was true. Gard was interesting, bright, good-looking, sexy. But that wasn’t it. That wasn’t what made Gard so hard to get out of her mind. What was it that made Gard so different? Not just one thing—big things and little things. The way Gard had caught her when she’d fallen that very first night—so steady and sure, her insistence on taking her home and caring for her when she had no reason to care at all, asking—really asking—about her work. Gard made her feel special. And the way she touched her—God, the way she touched her. Jenna closed her eyes. Her lips tingled with the memory of Gard’s mouth traveling over her throat, pressed between her breasts. Her nipples tightened and her clitoris ached. And underneath the arousal, she yearned for the connection she had been so certain she didn’t need.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  “Serious, isn’t it,” Alice murmured.

  “No. No, no it isn’t.” Jenna felt panicked in a way she hadn’t since she’d run away from home. Her life wasn’t out of control, she wouldn’t let it be. She wasn’t falling in love with Gard Davis. She wouldn’t let herself. They’d already discussed it, they’d already agreed. A few weeks. Neat and simple and no strings.

  *

  Gard couldn’t sleep. Her arm throbbed, but the pain wasn’t keeping her awake. After Jenna left, she’d rattled around the house for a while, walked down to the barn and checked on her animals, and ended up sitting astride a pasture fence listening to the night. The cool air helped dampen some of the fire from kissing Jenna, but nothing could douse the simmering coals deep inside. Back at the house, she lay naked on top of the sheets, staring at the ceiling or out the window at the waning moon, trying to figure out what was happening to her. When she’d been young, she’d desperately longed for a woman and thought her craving was love. Looking back, she recognized it as loneliness. The wealth and privilege she’d grown up with had been poor substitutes for intimacy, and she’d never quite fit in with her father and her brothers, and never known why.

  Then Susannah had blown into her life with the force of a hurricane, whipping through the empty rooms of her heart and blinding her to what really lay between them. Had she known the devastation that was coming, she doubted she could have walked away. The elation of having Susannah, of believing they shared desire, passion, need—the exhilaration was too addicting. The union she’d thought they’d had was everything she’d ever wanted. But what she’d thought was love proved to be only her own need, and she’d been left battered and bitterly alone. Abandoned at heart, renounced by her family and peers, she’d turned her back on wealth and status and empty dreams. She’d rebuilt a life where the storms of passion would not seduce her. And she’d been, if not happy, satisfied. Until Jenna came along and woke the sleeping dragon. Now she wanted again. God damn it. God damn it.

  Close to four she gave up trying to sleep. After a quick shower, she dressed methodically in jeans, a blue cotton shirt, and her work boots. She fed Beam, double-checked her appointment list to be sure she had the necessary equipment in the truck, and drove to the Hardy place. The house was dark when she pulled in front and cut her lights and engine. She sat listening to the engine tick and watched the front door, wondering if Jenna had changed her mind. Wondering if that might not be a good thing.

  She wasn’t sure why she’d invited Jenna to come with her, to spend time with her. To be part of her daily life. None of that would really matter when Jenna finally heard the whole story, from Alice or someone else. As much as Jenna said her past didn’t matter, she didn’t believe it. Right now, Jenna was on sabbatical from her life, but she was Cassandra Hart every bit as much as she was Jenna Hardy, and Cassandra Hart did not belong in Little Falls, Vermont. Cassandra Hart did not belong with her.

  Gard draped her arms over the steering wheel and watched the sun rise.

  “Sorry. Did I keep you waiting?” Jenna said through the open passenger side window.

  “No problem. I’m early. I didn’t see you come out.”

  “I was down at the barn. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Must be contagious.”

  “Do you still want me to come with you?”

  Just at that moment the first ray of sunshine struck the yard, painting Jenna in a swath of gold. The red highlights in her hair shimmered like flame and the sky reflected in her eyes. Framed in the truck window, she might have been an image painted by an Old Master. Gard stretched across the seat, popped the handle on the door, and pushed it open with her fingertips. “Climb in. We’re going to have a busy morning.”

  Jenna smiled and eclipsed the sun.

  “You look great,” Gard said. “Gorgeous.”

  “You’ll need to refrain from any compliments if you expect me to pay attention to work this morning,” Jenna said quietly as she got in and closed the door. “I’m serious about this research, you know.”

  Gard turned the ignition key. “I know.”

  Jenna slid over to the edge of the seat, wrapped her hand around Gard’s arm, and kissed the corner of her mouth. “But I had to do that first. You look pretty good yourself.”

  “You ready to go to work now that we’ve taken care of the important business?” Gard said it teasingly but her heart was racing like a rabbit with a fox hard on its trail.

  “Taken care of it?” Jenna laughed and settled back into her seat. “Oh, I don’t think so. Not by a long shot.”

  *

  Five hours later, Jenna climbed into the truck and moaned. “Oh my God. How far did we just walk? Ten miles?”

  Grinning, Gard backed down the narrow path between the pasture fences on Warren Jones’s back ninety. “I told you to sit this one out. You didn’t need to go all the way up the hill with me.”

  “I wanted to see
the baby lambs.” Jenna peered down at her sneakers. What was left of her sneakers. “I need new shoes.”

  “If you’re going to do any more of this kind of activity, you do.” Gard waved to Warren’s wife and kids, who were clustered on the porch, all waving vigorously.

  “I’d forgotten how everyone waves,” Jenna murmured.

  Gard pulled out onto the road and headed away from Little Falls toward Route 7 West into New York. “You grew up a country girl, didn’t you? It doesn’t show any longer.”

  Jenna stiffened. “No, I don’t imagine it would.”

  “Cassandra Hart didn’t grow up in the country, though, did she?”

  “Cassandra Hart is me.”

  Gard nodded. “What about Jenna Hardy? Is she you too?”

  Jenna smiled wryly. “You do realize that anyone listening to this conversation would think we were crazy.”

  “Probably.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I thought I’d take you someplace other than Oscar’s for lunch.”

  “Oh no, I can’t go to lunch. Look at me.”

  “Not while I’m driving.”

  “You know what I’m talking about. I’ve got dirt and…other things, all over me. I can’t—”

  “You look beautiful.” Gard reached between the seats and grasped Jenna’s hand. “We aren’t going anywhere that you need to be dressed up. You look fine.”

  “What about your work?”

  “What about yours?” Gard shrugged. “We need to eat, right? I’m not due in the clinic until late this afternoon. And you’re trying to change the subject.”

  Jenna cradled Gard’s hand in both of hers, tracing the nicks and scrapes on the back of her knuckles. She wanted to kiss each tiny cut. She wanted to kiss her, had wanted to for hours. “Your work is harder than I imagined. How is your arm?”

  “Stiff. No problem, though.”

  “Good.” When Gard moved her hand to the stick shift, Jenna held onto Gard’s wrist, liking the way the tendons tightened and the muscles flexed and relaxed when Gard shifted. She’d never taken such pleasure in another woman’s body before. They weren’t doing anything remotely sexual and she was becoming so aroused she was having trouble concentrating on the conversation. That was dangerous. Gard had a way of getting her to talk about things, admit things, she didn’t want to reveal. She released Gard’s arm as if that would break some deeper hold, and Gard somehow plucked her hand out of the air without ever looking away from the road. She let Gard lace their fingers together. Her stomach trembled at Gard’s silent refusal to let her go, at the way they effortlessly connected. Oh God. She was in terrible trouble.