by Radclyffe
But it wasn’t Sax’s manner that affected her so deeply; it was the loss of their fledgling personal connection. It was impossible not to take something to heart when it actually hurt.
“Sax...” Jude wanted to apologize but had no idea about what.
“I’m late, Ms. Castle. Please excuse me.”
And with that clear dismissal, Jude had no choice but to leave.
*
Jude had the afternoon free, since the next day she would be back in the hospital for another twenty-four hours of trauma call. She’d promised to meet Lori outside the hospital at 11:45 so the two of them could go somewhere for an early lunch.
Glancing at her watch as she descended the elevator to the main lobby, she saw she still had a few minutes before Lori was due. She headed for the exit doors and was surprised to see Sax a few feet ahead of her, briefcase in hand, clearly on her way to her meeting in Albany. For a minute, Jude contemplated catching up to her and then realized it would just be an intrusion. What could she say that would seem like anything other than what it was—curiosity about Sax’s past and an irrational need to put their personal relationship back on better footing. Reluctantly, she slowed down to avoid the surgeon, but when she exited, she found Sax on the sidewalk apparently waiting for a ride.
“Is this an important meeting—the one with the state this afternoon?” Jude asked when they found themselves standing side by side.
“Since a good deal of our funding is controlled by the state, yes.” Sax shifted her briefcase to her other hand and regarded Jude silently. After a moment, she said softly, “Ms. Castle—”
“Jude, remember?”
“Jude,” Sax acquiesced with a nod, “we’ll probably get along better if we stick to business.”
She’d noticed the look of confused hurt in Jude’s eyes when she’d terminated their interview so abruptly. She hadn’t intended to sound so brusque, but she hadn’t expected Jude to question her so pointedly either. She’d responded reflexively, with defenses honed over a lifetime. The way they parted had then bothered her all the way down from her office, no matter how hard she tried to forget about it.
“I wasn’t aware that you were concerned at all about how we got along,” Jude said stiffly. She disliked being placed on the defensive and resented it even more that Sax appeared to be setting limits on their relationship for reasons which were anything but clear to her. Not that that should even be an issue. Damn, why can’t you just ignore her and do the job?
“I find that I am concerned,” Sax answered contemplatively, “despite the fact that you and your crew are a constant source of irritation.”
Jude was about to make a caustic response when she caught the edge of a smile. “Believe me, Dr. Sinclair, we have a long way to go before we could possibly master the art of irritation that surgeons seem to possess.”
“That’s a point I can’t argue.” Sax laughed, but when she continued, her expression was intent. “Look, about this morning...”
Before Sax could finish, Jude heard someone call her name and turned to see Lori approaching, a broad smile of greeting on her face.
“Hey,” Lori said as she drew near, “I got through the deposition early and thought I’d take a chance that you would, too.” She brushed a quick kiss across Jude’s lips. “Mmm...my day’s looking better already.”
Momentarily nonplussed, Jude said, “Hi,” and turned to Sax to make introductions but the surgeon was no longer beside her. A sleek Jaguar convertible was idling curbside a few yeards away and Sax was sliding into the passenger seat. Jude instantly recognized the attractive blond at the wheel.
As Sax pulled the door shut and reached for her seat belt, she looked back at Jude. For a moment, their eyes held. Then the moment was gone. Glancing once at Lori’s hand resting casually on Jude’s back, Sax smiled wryly and turned away as the Jaguar slipped out into traffic.
“Who was that?” Lori asked, caught by the intensity of the dark-haired woman’s gaze.
“That was Saxon Sinclair, the trauma chief,” Jude said dryly.
“She is...impressive.” Lori couldn’t verbalize exactly what it was about the woman that had been so compelling. Or what it was about the way she’d looked at Jude that made her uncomfortable.
“Yes, she is.” Jude struggled to banish off the image of Sax and Pam Arnold looking for all the world like a magazine cover couple. She met Lori’s uncertain gaze and resolutely changed the subject. “Ready for lunch?”
“Sure.” Lori forced a smile. She was probably just imagining the almost palpable connection she had sensed between the two women. After all, they had done nothing more than look at one another across the span of a crowded city sidewalk.
Chapter Fifteen
Pam Arnold took her eyes from the road long enough to glance sideways at her passenger, appreciating as always the austere appeal of Saxon’s profile. Heading back downstate, she’d left the top down on the Jag because the evening was still warm, and the wind streamed through the other woman’s dark hair like a lover’s caress. With her face illuminated by moonlight, Sax looked wild and remote and compellingly erotic.
“Are you on call tomorrow?” Pam asked, reluctantly returning her eyes to the highway.
“Yes,” Sax replied faintly, watching the ribbon of macadam sliding hypnotically beneath their wheels, her mind elsewhere.
“I can’t believe that after an entire afternoon of arguing our case for continued funding, we had to sit through dinner with those bureaucratic bores and go through the whole thing again. I am sick to death of politics.”
“There’s no way to avoid it,” Sax commented. She hadn’t been thinking of the afternoon’s business as they tore south on the New York State Thruway toward home. She’d been thinking about Jude Castle and the woman who had greeted her outside the hospital. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Jude has a lover. She’s bright and dynamic and...quite beautiful. A woman like her would not be single.
Sax shrugged against the shoulder restraint, trying to work the tension out of her neck and back, telling herself to forget it. The morning’s interview with Jude had caught her off guard. She was just tired. Still, for a moment, she recalled vividly the sight of the attractive stranger quietly claiming Jude with the subtle intimacy of a familiar touch. The memory sparked an emotion that was not only foreign but also disconcerting—envy. Intimacy was not something she usually missed or consciously desired. Intimacy came with a price, and that price was often pain.
“I don’t know about you,” Pam continued, “but I could stand a few hours away from work, away from the very idea of it, and I’m not in that big a hurry to get home. I’d like to take my mind off the fact that I’ve spent half my life training to do this job, and now I have to ask permission from idiots to do it.”
Grateful for the interruption to her troubled thoughts, Sax nodded. “I wouldn’t mind forgetting the entire day either.”
“We’re less than an hour from my cabin,” Pam suggested impetuously. “Let’s stop there, get a bottle of wine, and stay the night. If we leave at 5:00, we’ll be back in the city in plenty of time for both of us in the morning.”
Sax’s initial impulse was to say no, because she wasn’t certain she had the energy to be decent company and she wasn’t certain what kind of company Pam might be looking for. They’d known each other casually for over a year, ever since Pam joined the staff at St. Michael’s. Recently their conversations had taken on a decidedly flirtatious air, and Pam had pointedly asked her out a few months before. Sax had vacillated over accepting the invitation because she disliked complications, and dating in the conventional sense always got complicated.
Regarding Pam now, trying to glean her intent from her expression, Sax debated how to respond. She had absolutely no reason to go home. In fact, if she did, she would very likely spend the night pacing or searching for something to help dispel her restless energy and her unwelcome emotions. She decided she could worry about Pam’s intentions when and if she needed to...or wa
nted to. Pam Arnold was a very desirable woman.
“That sounds fine. We ought to be able to find a package store that’s open. Since you’re providing the accommodations, I’ll buy the wine.”
Forty-five minutes later, a chilled bottle of champagne in a cold-wrap bag resting between the bucket seats, Pam pulled up in front of a moderate-sized rustic cabin overlooking one of the myriad lakes in the Catskill Mountains. She’d chosen the hideaway because it was an easy drive from the city via the thruway but still far enough from popular resorts to be private. She closed the top on the convertible and led the way up to the front porch of the wooden structure, sorting through her key ring as they walked.
“Nice place,” Sax remarked as Pam unlocked the door, and she meant it. Through the trees opposite the cabin she could see moonlight shimmering on the smooth surface of the lake, and though lights twinkled along the shoreline, there were no other structures in the immediate proximity. The night was very still and very quiet.
“It’s a perfect place to come to read or write or...to have some privacy.” Pam pushed open the door and held it for Sax to enter.
The large front room was enclosed on three sides by windows, while a stone fireplace and a double archway, which led into a spacious kitchen, took up most of the fourth. Sax assumed the bedroom was in the rear as well.
“Is there ice?” Sax asked as she walked toward the kitchen.
“All the modern conveniences,” Pam said lightly as she followed. “I may like solitude, but rustic camping is not my idea of a good time. There’s electricity, heat, and honest-to-God indoor plumbing. All the comforts of home.”
Laughing, Sax opened several cabinets above the long kitchen counter and found an array of glassware, including wineglasses. She pulled down two as Pam handed her a metal bucket for ice.
“If you’ll take care of this, I’ll start a fire. It might be July, but what’s a cabin without a fire? Besides, if we leave the windows open, it will cool off before long. By midnight, we’ll need a blanket.”
By the time Sax had opened the bottle, filled the bucket, and found a tray, Pam had a small log burning nicely and had placed several candles on tables by the sofa. The effect was charming and intimate. Sax handed her a glass of the champagne and sat next to her on the sofa.
“So,” Pam said, slipping off her Ferragamos and propping her silk-stockinged feet on the stone coffee table, “let’s not talk about the hospital, surgery, departmental politics, or anything remotely related to work.”
“All right.” Sax smiled as she shrugged out of her suit jacket and laid it over the arm of the sofa. “What does that leave?”
Pam laughed. “We’re pathetic. No sports. Let’s see...film, literature, art, or plain old-fashioned gossip are acceptable.”
“It’ll be a struggle,” Sax joked, “especially the no sports part, but I think I can manage.”
Pam sipped her champagne and studied the woman beside her. She loved to look at her, and it wasn’t just because of her physical appeal. There was a brooding sense of mystery about her that was incredibly attractive. Pam liked a challenge in her women, and Saxon Sinclair was certainly that. This was as close as she’d ever gotten to a private moment with her, and she didn’t intend to let it pass unexploited. Leaning forward, she rested her fingertips on the back of Sax’s neck and softly ran a few strands of black hair through her fingers. “Or I suppose we could skip conversation altogether.”
Carefully, Sax set her champagne glass on the small end table by her side. She turned back to find Pam only inches away, her lips slightly parted and her eyes liquid with promise. The statuesque blond was the very definition of sultry. Desire spread through Sax’s body as the fingers in her hair slid under her collar and trailed over her neck.
“I have this rule,” she remarked softly, her throat tight with the sudden swell of arousal. Usually, she didn’t find many reasons to resist when a beautiful woman expressed an interest, but this time she wasn’t certain she could let anything sexual happen. Not with Pam, not now.
“I don’t think I’m going to like this,” Pam whispered hoarsely as she moved closer on the sofa, her breasts brushing along Sax’s arm. She traced the edge of Sax’s ear lightly with one hand as she slid the other over Sax’s abdomen. Muscles twitched under her fingers, and she smiled at the response. She enjoyed seduction, especially when the rewards were so tantalizing.
Sax caught Pam’s hand gently as it slid lower toward the waistband of her trousers. “Pam, we have to work together almost every day. Something like this can make that relationship awkward.” She drew in a breath as Pam’s fingers danced along her fly. Swallowing the involuntary moan, she added, “And I would rather avoid that.”
“Saxon,” Pam murmured as she pressed her length against Sax’s body and kissed the edge of her jaw, then moved her lips closer to the corner of Sax’s mouth. “I’m not proposing marriage here.”
“I’m devastated to hear that.” Sax laughed softly. For a moment, she was captured by the heady scent of Pam’s perfume and the subtle hint of desire. Succumbing to the urge that spread hotly through her limbs, she angled her face to accept the kiss.
When they both leaned back to catch their breath, Pam said, “I am proposing you spend the night making love with me, but I’m not opposed to going slower, if that’s what you really want.” Deliberately yet delicately, she drew one finger along the pulse in Sax’s neck and traced the faint trail of perspiration down the center of her chest. Practiced fingers worked loose the first button on Sax’s shirt. “Though I wouldn’t have thought that you were the type to need courting.”
“It’s not courting I require.” Sax’s hips lifted automatically as Pam’s hand slid inside her shirt and over the top of her breast. A couple more seconds of this, and it won’t matter why I thought this was a bad idea.
“What is it, then,” Pam dipped her head and pressed her lips to the skin she had exposed on Sax’s chest, “that you require?”
Anonymity. I want to walk away and owe nothing.
Already hard and wet, she ached to touch the stiff points of Pam’s nipples so clearly outlined against the sheer material of her blouse. She wanted skin against her palms and heat beneath her lips. She wanted to hear a woman cry out as she filled her and held that fragile passion in her hands. She wanted a woman to stroke her own aching need, and she wanted to explode against the sweet demanding softness of another’s lips. She wanted it badly, so badly that in another minute she’d forget that the woman she held in her mind was not Pam Arnold.
A few weeks before, it had been a dream vision, but even in the dream, she’d known who it was that stirred her desire. One unguarded moment, she’d nearly succumbed to that same woman in the dark, still hallway of the hospital. Instead, she’d let a stranger satisfy the lust Jude Castle had ignited in her that night, but she couldn’t let Pam do it now. She knew Pam’s face. They were friends. But if Pam kept touching her, she would forget that and she would forget her basic rule of noninvolvement.
“Pam,” she gasped abruptly as skillful fingers found her nipple. “Time out...time out...oh, Jesus...” She grabbed Pam’s hand and stilled it against her flesh.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Astonished, Pam drew back far enough to look into Sax’s face. She knew desire when she saw it, and she recognized the need in those heavy-lidded, hazy blue eyes. “I suppose it would be churlish of me to say that I know you want this.”
“Wanting...is not the issue.” Sax took a deep breath and willed her heart to stop pounding.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what the issue is?”
“No.” I don’t want to explain it to myself.
“Saxon,” Pam whispered, removing her hand reluctantly. “It usually takes more than a kiss to make me want someone as badly as I want you right now. The only reason I care about your issues is because it’s preventing me from having you. I’m a big girl...I’m not worried about tomorrow.”
“If it makes y
ou feel any better,” Sax said with a weary sigh, “you’ve pretty much demolished me, too. I can barely think.”
“But you’re still not going to fuck me, are you?”
Sax laughed, relieved to feel her control returning. “Not tonight.”
“God, I hate you,” Pam said, running both hands through her long blond hair and sighing. “I can’t sleep like this, and we both need some rest.” She stood and reached for Sax’s hand. “Come on, let’s go swimming.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” Sax protested, but she followed obediently as Pam tugged her through the front door.
“Good. Then no one will know we’re naked except us.”
*
The night was never truly dark in New York City, because the lights from thousands of buildings and tens of thousands of cars always illuminated the sky in a palette of ghostly pallor. The windows were open, street noises wafted up from below, and a faint breeze cooled the sweat on her skin.
“I’m fine,” Jude whispered, cradling the still trembling woman in her arms. She ran her fingers through the other woman’s hair, over her shoulders and down her back, resting her hand in the delicate valley just above her hips. The skin was so soft there, so fragile, and it was such a private place—it never ceased to fill her with wonder each time she touched her there. “You were enough.”
“Mmm,” Lori sighed, brushing her cheek over Jude’s breast. “You were wonderful. And as soon as I catch my breath, I want to return the favor.”
“It’s late, we should get some sleep.”
“I’ll put you to sleep,” Lori insisted, rousing herself and sliding on top of Jude. She insinuated her leg between Jude’s thighs, her breath catching quickly as she felt the wet heat against her skin. “God, I love the way you feel.”
Jude sensed her own arousal as if from a distance. They’d made love because it was part of the rhythm of their relationship, and her body had responded to the familiarity and the stimulation. But even as she caressed the places she knew so well and drew from Lori cries of pleasure and, finally, sobs of release, she’d felt as if she were watching a favorite film. She recognized the players and the play, and she couldn’t help but respond. She was aroused, but still she felt a disconnection that left her feeling hollow, and alone.
