Passion's Bright Fury

by Radclyffe

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Jude exclaimed as the headlights flashed twice and the muted sound of door locks opening reached her ears. “I don’t think I made out in the backseat of a car even when I was a teenager. I’m certainly too old for gymnastics now.”

  “You have no idea what these are like inside.” Sax hurriedly opened the trunk and pulled out a large flannel blanket. “For emergencies,” she commented while opening the rear door. She leaned in to spread the blanket on the seat. Turning to Jude, she extended a hand. “Would you join me, Ms. Castle?”

  Laughing aloud, Jude took the offered hand and slid into the spacious backseat beside Sax. “This is crazy. You know that, right?”

  Sax regarded her solemnly. “I told you that.” Then, eyes dancing, she fell back against the plush leather seat and pulled Jude onto her lap.

  Jude threaded her arms around Sax’s neck and curled into her body, meeting her lips with urgent intensity. Beneath her, Sax spread long legs, and Jude pressed into the tight vee between those inviting thighs. Sax lifted her hips to meet her thrusts as their tongues sent promises of pleasure to come.

  When their kisses became frantic and the air grew thick with hunger, Jude eased away for an instant, stripped off her shirt, and let it fall behind her. A second later, Sax’s mouth was on her breast. She moaned with the quicksilver flash of excitement that streaked from her nipple into the pit of her stomach. Working both hands into Sax’s hair, she kept the surgeon’s head tightly to her breast.

  “Bite me,” she whispered urgently, and her breath caught in a soft groan as Sax complied. She closed her eyes, wanting only to surrender to the heat and the fury of needs too long unanswered. “You can’t know...what...that does to me,” she cried faintly, her cheek nestled against Sax’s hair.

  “Oh, yes, I can.” Sax’s voice was deep and sure. “I know”—she bit lightly—“that I could make you”—she bit again—“come”—another bite—“like this...” and once more, harder.

  “Don’t...” Jude whispered, her voice breaking as she tightened inside. “Not yet.”

  “No,” Sax growled. Gathering Jude into her arms, she shifted quickly on the seat until they were reclining, Jude beneath her, their thighs intertwined. “Not just yet.”

  She kissed Jude’s neck, the angle of her jaw, the corner of her mouth, her lips—hard enough to bruise but backing off just short of pain. She wanted this woman—wanted to possess her, devour her, drive her beyond sanity—she wanted her so much it was nearly paralyzing. Her chest felt like it would explode.

  Trembling, aching, she moved her lips slowly down the center of Jude’s body, her hands between them working Jude’s jeans open. After moving lower still between her legs, Sax whispered, “Lift your hips.”

  When Jude complied, Sax pulled the fabric down and finally off, momentarily resting her palms on the insides of the bare thighs. With splayed fingers, she pressed firmly, willing Jude to open, and then slowly lowered her mouth to enclose the full clitoris. As she pulled the sensitive tissues gently between her lips, tasting Jude’s arousal, Sax moaned and her mind dissolved.

  Jude arched under Sax’s mouth, every fiber contracting with the exquisite sensation of slick hot pleasure. “Go slowly,” she murmured, “it’s so good...”

  Already lost, Sax followed only the rhythm of Jude’s heart beating, flowed only to the sound of her soft moans, knew only the call of her flesh. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful...

  When Jude came in her mouth, Sax’s mind erupted with white heat, absorbing every fragment of the moment, treasuring each sound and scent and tremor. She whimpered, twitching inside her jeans, as Jude’s passion swept along her nerves and ignited her. Her thighs tightened, her stomach clenched, and she came hard on the heels of Jude’s release.

  *

  “You know,” Jude muttered drowsily, “if you keep coming without me even touching you, I’m going to start feeling superfluous.”

  “Believe me, you’re not,” Sax assured, shifting on the broad seat to settle Jude more comfortably against her. “Something happens to me when I touch you. I get—”

  Jude bit her neck. “I know...crazy.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Well, then, let’s find out what happens when I do touch you.” Jude flicked open the top button on Sax’s fly. “Maybe you’ll have better control.”

  “I don’t...think so,” Sax warned as Jude slid her hands inside tight jeans. “Uh...everything about my nervous system is fast. I don’t have anything to say about it most of the time.”

  “Try.”

  “Jude,” Sax protested as fingers grasped her firmly, and her head nearly blew off. “Jes...wait. Give me a minute.”

  “Okay. Fifty-nine, fifty-eight...” Jude intoned, punctuating each count with a quick stroke over Sax’s clitoris.

  Sax gritted her teeth and tried to remember her on-call schedule for the next three weeks. When that didn’t help diminish the rapidly escalating pressure between her legs, she considered the quarterly budget. No luck. “Stop...” she gasped, “for a...second.”

  Jude relented. Sax’s heart was pounding so hard it was almost scary. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Oh yeah,” Sax managed, backing away from the edge. She took a deep breath. “Just...sometimes, quick reflexes are a problem, you know?”

  “Ah—does this have anything to do with not sleeping and all that restless energy you have?” Jude stilled her motion but kept a gentle hold between Sax’s thighs. “Is it a physical thing?”

  “Probably. It gets away from me, and I don’t want it to, not with you.” She pressed her lips to Jude’s temple, and whispered, “I want to feel it all.”

  “We can do that,” Jude murmured. This she could give her. Gently now, she began again. With a light, steady touch, she soothed Sax even as passion stirred. Easing off when she felt Sax shudder, she led her steadily higher, timing her motion to the cadence of the heartbeat beneath her cheek. “Tell me when you’re close.”

  Wordlessly, Sax nodded, feeling Jude beside her, inside her—standing between her and oblivion, guiding her surely home. “What you’re doing...I’ll come.”

  “Are you ready?” Jude asked softly, but she knew the answer. Sax’s entire body trembled, every fiber poised to snap. She was already there.

  “Ye—”

  Speech disappeared in an avalanche of sensation, and Sax turned her face to Jude’s shoulder, crying out once, sharply, and then she was gone.

  *

  “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  “Eleven-forty,” Sax replied.

  Jude rolled over, raised her head, and peered at the dashboard in the dim light filtering in from the barn adjacent to the attached garage. After a second, she settled back against Sax’s chest. “Remarkable.”

  “A lot of people can do that.” Sax adjusted her back so that the door handle didn’t poke her in the shoulder blade.

  “Are you always that accurate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does that have something to do with your...heightened nervous system?”

  “Most likely. We get all kinds of cues from our environment that we don’t really think about. For me, sensory input is processed and categorized very quickly, automatically, and I don’t even pay any attention to it anymore.”

  “It’s not dangerous, is it?” Jude asked quietly, unable to forget Sax’s story of being hospitalized. “I mean, you can’t get...overloaded...or anything, can you?”

  Sax pressed her lips to Jude’s forehead and then nuzzled her ear gently. “No. Not as long as my system isn’t altered in some way. I’m very sensitive to any kind of drug, but I know that, and I’m careful to avoid them. I don’t even take aspirin.”

  “And sexually? Are you always...uh...primed?”

  Sax sat up a little straighter on the seat so she could face Jude. “If you’re asking me if my sexual response is indiscriminate, the answer is no. I’ll admit it’s convenient to be able to relieve physical t
ension and stress with a quick and easy orgasm. That night you saw me in the bar—”

  “That wasn’t what I was talking about,” Jude said quickly, although she had wondered if their physical intimacy meant the same thing to Sax as it did for her. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t hope this was more than just a casual romp for the surgeon. Whereas once the vision of Sax being pleasured by an anonymous woman had excited her, now the idea nearly made her insane. She wasn’t at all sure that she could handle the thought of anyone else touching her. Still, she recognized that she had no right to make Sax feel uncomfortable about things that had nothing to do with her. “I wasn’t talking about your relationship with other women.”

  “Weren’t you?” Sax responded mildly. “Well, I’m going to talk about it anyway. I’ve never attached very much importance to sex, because it was never emotional for me—it was just biology. That’s what you saw that night. It was an orgasm; it was a momentary release; it was an instant of escape. By the time it was over, I had already forgotten it.”

  She ran her fingertips along the edge of Jude’s jaw, lifted Jude’s chin in her palm, and held her gaze with fierce intensity. “That’s not what this is, Jude. When I’m with you, I feel so much it’s hard for me to breathe. When you touch me, you reach all the way inside me. When my hands are on you, I feel like something inside of me is breaking, and it hurts so much I think I’m dying. And I’ve never been so happy.”

  Jude was silent a long moment, struggling with emotions so unexpected and so powerful they left her speechless. Never had she wanted anything as much as she wanted Sax’s words to be true. The intensity of her longing was frightening, even more so because it made no sense at all. She had never imagined wanting anyone, needing anyone, so badly. She was terrified to believe a single word that Sax said, but even more terrified to think that her words might not be true.

  Finally, her voice shaking, she said, “I wouldn’t mind if I were the only one taxing your nervous system from now on.”

  “I have a feeling you’ll be taxing a lot more than just my nervous system.” Sax laughed and pulled her close. Then, her tone completely serious, she added, “I can’t imagine anyone making me feel what you do. I don’t want anyone else to. And I want you all the time—so damn much. You don’t have to worry about where I’ll be at night.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you, Sax,” Jude murmured quietly, “if I weren’t mad about you.”

  Sax grew very still. Jude’s words echoed first in her mind, and then filled her heart, and finally touched her soul. “I wouldn’t make the promise if I didn’t feel the same.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A single light glowed in the kitchen and several covered dishes rested on the counter. The aroma of baked chicken and apples nearly brought tears to Jude’s eyes. The clock said 12:30.

  “I am so hungry.”

  “Do you want to eat down here or shall we take something upstairs to our room?” Sax lifted a casserole lid and then sniffed appreciatively.

  Jude regarded her speculatively. “Our room?”

  “You can’t really think I’m going to let you sleep anywhere except with me tonight?” Sax regarded her with an amused expression on her face. “And the Rolls has served its purpose for the evening.”

  “Uh...I hadn’t really thought about us...you know, sleeping together. Here, I mean.”

  “Why, Ms. Castle, I never would have figured you for shy.” Sax laughed, enjoying the blush that stole to Jude’s cheeks, and enjoying, too, the residual signs of their recent lovemaking. Jude’s hair was disheveled, her shirt untucked, and her lips just short of bruised.

  Remembering the way those lips had teased her, tormented her, and finally delivered her, Sax’s mouth went dry and her knees grew weak. Oh, man, I am so, so lost. Suddenly, she forgot all about dinner. She advanced on Jude, ravenous, and only one thing would assuage the hunger.

  “It’s just that, if we get into bed together, I fully intend to spend most of the night making love,” Jude announced, recognizing the shift in Sax’s expression from playful to predatory. She put her palm flat against Sax’s chest, holding her off, figuring they had maybe five minutes before they were naked again. If Sax touched her, perhaps less time than that, because her skin was already burning. “Maddy’s your grandmother. Your choice.”

  “Her room is on the first floor,” Sax rasped, backing Jude against the counter, reaching around her waist to trap her. She kissed her neck. “And all I want is your skin next to mine for the next twenty-four hours. At least.”

  “Well then,” Jude replied huskily, slipping her hands into the back pockets of Sax’s jeans and squeezing, “we’re going to need nourishment. Immediately. Because I don’t plan on waiting very long to have you.”

  The room, with its large four-poster bed, fireplace, and oak dressers, was very much like the guest room Jude had used only a few days before, but it had a lived-in feel that the other did not. The Oriental carpet was worn by the side of the bed from years of footsteps, and a stack of books and journals rested on the nightstand beneath a reading lamp. The large walk-in closet door was open, and she could see shirts and jeans and more formal suits arranged within.

  “This is really where you live, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Sax replied, her tone distracted as she hastily unbuttoned her shirt. They’d eaten quickly; she couldn’t remember now how anything had tasted. She was wound tight inside, desire coiled so tautly she was in danger of spontaneous combustion.

  “When?” Jude was mesmerized by the pulse thudding in Sax’s neck. She wanted to put her teeth on that spot—leave another mark. Her mark. She barely recognized herself.

  “Maddy and I lived in her apartment in Manhattan the first year I was with her, but then she bought this place. This has been my room, my home, ever since.” Sax tossed her shirt on a nearby chair and was about to start on her jeans when it finally registered that Jude wasn’t moving. Concerned, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m just enjoying the view,” Jude replied a bit breathlessly. And the minute we lie down together I’m not going to be able to think about anything except the way you feel. And this matters. Valiantly, she tried to ignore the buzzing in her head. “What happened after you moved in with Maddy?”

  “I finished high school with home study soon after I was released from the hospital,” Sax answered, moving to the foot of the bed, naked from the waist up, a faint sheen of desire misting her skin. Jude stood a foot away, leaning against one of the bedposts, still fully clothed. Sax rested her fingers on Jude’s bare forearms. “Nine months later, I left for college.”

  “You were young.” A steady pounding between Jude’s legs kept time with the beat in Sax’s neck. Her vision blurred.

  “Yes.” Sax lifted a finger, ran it slowly down the center of Jude’s throat. “Is this a test?”

  Jude swallowed. When she spoke, her voice was strained. “How long did it take you? College and medical school?”

  “Four and a half years.” Sax watched Jude’s pupils dilate. She lifted the shirt slowly over Jude’s head. Her hands shook. “Why?”

  “Because I want to know who you are,” Jude whispered, desperate to bury her face in the soft curve of Sax’s shoulder. Wait, Jude, can’t you? Don’t touch her yet. Just wait. What is wrong with you?

  “You do know.” Sax slowly unbuttoned her own fly. “You know what I need right now, don’t you?”

  “There’s a lot you aren’t telling me,” Jude murmured quietly.

  “Not so much. Nothing that really matters,” Sax replied gently. Closing the distance between them, she took Jude’s hands and placed them inside the waistband of her jeans. Then she looked into smoldering green eyes. “You know more about me than anyone else in the world, except Maddy. And there are some things you know that no one else will ever know.”

  “I like that,” Jude whispered, pushing down on the denim, exposing her.

  “Yes.” Sax’s voice was husky. “So
do I.”

  *

  Late in the night, Jude sensed Sax leaving the bed.

  “What’s wrong?” she mumbled, sitting up, naked in the moonlight.

  “Nothing.” Shirt in hand, Sax leaned down to gently kiss her sleepy lover. “I never finished that work in the barn. I got distracted earlier.”

  “I remember,” Jude said softly. “Have you slept?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Lie here with me for five minutes.” Jude grasped Sax’s hand and urged her back toward the bed. “Then you can go.”

  “That’s a tough order,” Sax whispered, stretching out beside her. “But I’ll do my best.”

  The last thing Sax remembered was Jude stroking her face, the comforting warmth of her body, and the sweet tender touch of her mouth. The next thing she knew, she was awakening to sunlight on her skin. Opening her eyes, she found Jude propped on an elbow, watching her. “What time is it?”

  “Don’t you know?” Jude asked, smiling.

  “Actually, no.” Sax stretched contentedly. “God, I feel great.”

  “It’s nine o’clock.”

  “How long have you been awake?”

  “About fifteen minutes.”

  “You have a very pleased smile on your face,” Sax observed, slipping her hand into the mass of rich red curls at the base of Jude’s neck. She gathered her close and kissed her. “What were you thinking?”

  “How much I liked it that you slept all night with me.” Jude slid her thigh possessively across Sax’s leg. “And that you’re so beautiful it makes my heart hurt.”

  “Jude, I don’t know how I managed before you.” She watched Jude’s eyes grow hazy.

  “I know,” Jude murmured, feeling walls tumble and doors open all along the hallways of her soul.

  They reached for one another at the same time, arms and legs entwining as they joined. They promised constancy with each kiss and pledged devotion with each caress. With their hands, they found each other’s need and eased it. With their lips, they sought each other’s desire and reveled in it. With their hearts, they heard each other’s dreams and answered them. They climbed together, soared together, came together, calling each other’s names as passion burned brightly.