by Lee Winter
“D-direct?” Lauren said. “Um…you mean…you want to… Here?”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Catherine said and tossed her a haughty look. Her dark eyes were filled with the promise of every gloriously, naughty deed Lauren could ever imagine. And probably a few she couldn’t.
She gulped, making an odd, strangled noise that had never before come out of her mouth.
“Quiet,” Catherine said again. It became like a murmured mantra as her hands slid down Lauren’s dress. They skated to her waist and then drifted back up to her chest. “Quiet.” She whispered kisses along her collarbone and ran her tongue down Lauren’s cleavage. “So very quiet.”
Then, without warning, she pulled away and wrenched down the bodice of Lauren’s dress with both hands. Lauren’s full, naked breasts bounced into sight.
Catherine gave a pleased hum at the lack of bra, as her scorching gaze studied her find. Her fingers lifted once more to run lazy circles around a coral-pink nipple. She flicked it, and they both watched as the swollen flesh puckered.
“Delightful.” Catherine’s voice was low to the point of gravelly. It was doing funny things to Lauren’s insides.
Catherine’s lips landed on the nearest bare nipple, and she scraped her tongue across it.
“Oh God,” Lauren said.
Her lover’s white teeth nipped and nibbled at the sensitive flesh, and Lauren’s hips began to buck forward. She wondered if she looked as desperate as she felt.
“Feeling a little needy?”
Well, that answered that question.
The tongue laving her breast paused, and Catherine’s head angled up. The gleam in her eyes was positively dangerous.
“Please.” Lauren gasped. Her hips bucked again. God, did she have any self-control?
“Please, what?” Catherine’s nimble fingers reached for the mid-thigh hem of Lauren’s dress and waited. “Was there something you wanted? Something you needed?”
“Catherine,” Lauren said in a whisper. She swallowed.
The air around them felt charged. She could smell arousal and a hint of Catherine’s perfume and a sweet peatiness from the press of ornamental trees. Her nerve endings felt as though they were misfiring. Every part of her skin was hypersensitive. A hint of breeze felt almost painful. And whenever Catherine’s tongue slid teasingly across her flesh, Lauren’s center clenched, craving so much more.
The hands on Lauren’s thighs were stroking now—firm, even motions that were sending electric jolts straight to her core. The vision of what lay ahead was Lauren’s final undoing.
Catherine—the Catherine Ayers, all uptight, Boston elite, fancy pearls, and superior attitude—was about to fuck her up against a wall at Lauren’s last LA party. It was so damned illicit. So…oh hell…so wrong.
“God yes,” she moaned.
So right.
“Quiet.” The lips against her breast said as they curled into a smile.
Feathering fingertips reached high up the inside of Lauren’s thighs, and her muscles trembled in anticipation. She wasn’t sure she would be able to hold her own weight if Catherine kept up such torturous games.
“Please,” she whispered again, not even bothering to hide her wantonness. “Please touch me. God, I’ve missed you.”
Catherine responded instantly, and by the time her fingers reached their goal, having first detoured past every inch of soft skin along the way, Lauren’s panties were a soaked mess.
Catherine rubbed Lauren’s cleft, outlined against her sodden lingerie, and groaned approval against her neck. “Good,” she said softly. “I’d hate to be the only one.”
Lauren gasped at the implication and, stung into action, reached for her desperately, drawing up the lemon-colored designer dress pressed against her.
There was a small gasp, so soft that Lauren almost missed it. She loved the way Catherine’s breathing changed the moment she touched her. She hooked the dress in her fingers, drawing it higher and higher, the tips of her fingers playing over the slipperiness of silk stocking under it.
She paused when she felt something unexpected. A pair of lacy bands? Catherine was wearing thigh-high stockings?
She glanced at the woman who was settled against her neck, dragging her teeth across the skin, nibbling possessively. Their eyes met, and there was no mistaking Catherine’s desire. Her lips curled up into a cat-like, possessive smile that was part smirk, part power play.
Those teasing fingers between Lauren’s legs did a mischievous twiddle, causing her thumb to bump against Lauren’s clit, reminding her that they were still there.
Lauren groaned at the gush of moisture under those maddening fingers and tried to distract herself. But those twirling fingers were playing serious havoc with her concentration.
Two could play at this seduction. She shifted her hands higher up Catherine’s thigh, farther up under Catherine’s dress, and then paused in amazement. All she felt was Catherine’s warm thighs and then… Even more warm skin. Wet, warm skin.
“Catherine? Did you forget to put something on this evening?”
“On the contrary,” came the arch reply. “Forward planning is an essential skill. I thoroughly recommend it.”
Lauren swallowed. Her fingers rubbed against the slippery skin, mapping out Catherine’s petite tucks and folds, relishing how much heat and liquid she could feel.
“Oh,” Catherine huffed near her ear in a voice that sounded uncharacteristically ragged. “Inside. Now. Oh Christ.”
The plea was the most erotic sound Lauren had ever heard. She entered Catherine with two fingers, pushing inside the pulsing, obscenely wet heat, and set up a consistent rhythm. In and out.
A gasp.
A tremble.
In and out.
A soft hitch.
Lauren pressed her legs together, desperate not to come herself.
A small cry.
In and out.
It was the most alive Lauren had ever felt, these moments where she claimed as hers this beautiful woman. A woman that everyone dismissed as distant. Cold. Unfeeling.
If only they knew.
Catherine rocked herself against Lauren’s hand, making pleas for faster, more, and yes, there, oh, oh yes.
Lauren loved the clenching sensation as Catherine’s body pulled her fingers deeper, demanding more of her. Her heart pounded at having such an intimate experience, knowing that Catherine was as aroused as she was, as hot and frantic and needy, and even if she wanted to, she couldn’t hide it anymore. There were no more games. Not when she was like this.
She pressed the base of her hand against Catherine’s clit and almost unravelled on the spot as a low, primal moan filled the air—erotic and raw.
Lauren’s fingers were soaked in Catherine’s essence, and she revelled in the proof of the effect she had on this enigmatic woman.
Catherine’s hand between Lauren’s legs suddenly twitched back into life. Without a word, two fingers were inside her. Lauren squeezed her eyes closed at the overwhelming sensation, combined with the intoxicating sounds of slippery flesh being stroked.
A teasing thumb snicked across her clit, circling it, flicking it, torturing it. Lauren quivered and felt herself clench, and then Catherine’s wicked lips were on her mouth.
Catherine usually kissed her as though she had all the time in the world. As though playing and kissing were the same thing, a way of showing her skills at arousing another. But this was new. She plundered her mouth. There was no trademark finesse. It was like she was drawing her life force from Lauren. It was desperate, frenzied and so, so damned hot. They tangled tongues, aroused by each other’s soft moans as their fingers drove each other’s desire higher and higher.
Lauren was nearing her tipping point as the pressure built. Curling, coiling blasts of ecstasy were starting to radiate out from her clit
, and her brain had turned into a sloppy, euphoric mush.
The smell, the sounds, the taste of those lips. She pressed closer into Catherine, holding on, clinging to her.
To Lauren’s surprise, Catherine succumbed first. She crashed against her, pinning her against the pillar, and surrendered with a low, long moan.
Lauren lived for this. Seeing the walls crash down that kept Catherine apart from the rest of the world. Seeing the distance vanish, the guarded look fall away and just honest vulnerability reflecting back from her icy blue eyes.
Sometimes Lauren wished she could freeze time to that heartbeat when Catherine came undone, the first twitch where all her fears and hopes were exposed. Almost close enough for Lauren to touch and smooth away like a tear.
Catherine’s eyes fluttered closed as she bucked again. The lost, helpless cry was enough to unravel Lauren. When Catherine’s fingers sought out her clit once more, she shuddered and came with punishing force, practically crushing the hand stroking her.
There was a moment’s silence. Fingers still held by the other’s warmth, pounding with staccato pulses.
Lauren didn’t want it to end. She never did. And after two weeks apart, it felt even harder to let go.
She felt the loss of Catherine’s fingers and, with great reluctance, slid her own out from beneath Catherine’s dress. They straightened their own outfits a little sheepishly. Then Catherine pressed herself gently back into Lauren, arms wrapping around her, holding her. Tight.
It conveyed more emotion than she’d ever openly said out loud. Maybe Mariella was onto something? It was a thought to dissect at another time. She felt those teasing, naughty teeth scraping against her neck once more. A reminder of who Lauren had just been claimed by.
“Wow,” Lauren exhaled. “Never leaving. This is perfect right here.”
A smile twitched against her neck. “Then you would have to explain to your new editor that you’re passing up a career-making opportunity in order to satisfy your lover over and over against the wall of the Pacific Grand.”
“Sounds feasible.”
They both laughed.
“Lauren?”
“Mmm.”
“Why are the waiters on roller skates at this thing?”
“Not sure. I think it’s Heddy’s fault. Or Emmanuelle’s? I lost track.”
“Ah.”
There was a lengthy silence, and then the arms around her gentled and stroked her back. “Lauren?”
“Mmm?”
“I missed you, too.”
Lauren smiled and exhaled shakily against the head burrowed into her neck, knowing Catherine would never see her relief.
“I could tell,” Lauren said lightly. “And I missed you more.”
“Must you always argue with me?” Catherine asked curiously.
“Ha. You like me like this,” Lauren told her, dropping a kiss on her temple.
“Sadly. It’s clearly a madness.” Catherine caught her eye and then kissed her thoroughly. She pulled back, studying her. “Although I could get very used to this kind of madness.”
Lauren felt soothed and a little giddy. “Yeah.” She grinned. “I know the feeling.”
Lauren King might have spent over a year covering the outlandish parties of LA’s rich and famous, but she had never experienced anything like this.
Under Your Skin
Chapter 1 –
The Idiot from Iowa
Senator Frederick T. Hickory was practically dead—not that he seemed to know it.
His brown suit had all the fashion savvy of a corpse, and his craggy sixty-three-year-old face indicated early-onset rigor mortis. But it was more than that.
Catherine Ayers had been reading the man’s autobiography of late. Never had a shallower book crossed her news desk. Somewhere between asides on fly fishing, pie baking, and cow tipping lay an ambitious politician desperate to be taken seriously but who didn’t have a clue how.
She gazed at the senator from Iowa, who was holding forth with a monotonous nasal drone.
This was not how.
Catherine glanced around at her media colleagues squinting under the sun’s midday glare lancing off the water pool at the Memorial for American Veterans Disabled for Life.
A pair of veterans in wheelchairs bookended the senator at the lectern. The one on the right had nodded off ten minutes ago. The one on the left looked envious.
She could relate.
Most of the gathered journalists appeared semi-comatose. They hadn’t so much as twitched for five minutes.
“Christ, Ayers,” muttered Pete, beside her, as he adjusted his TV camera. “Can you do something to resurrect this boring clusterfuck? I don’t often beg, but hell, if anyone can put a rocket up ole Hicks, it’s you.”
“Pete, here’s a shocking thought—why don’t you get your own reporter to ask a relevant question? Or any question?”
Both their gazes travelled to a young, lantern-jawed blond man with a smart suit and vacant expression. He was fiddling with his hair—and had been for some time.
The cameraman gave Catherine a pained look.
“I see.” Catherine sighed. “Would it be too much to expect the rest of DC’s media to actually do their jobs?”
“But that’s what our Caustic Queen’s for.” He grinned at her, apparently sensing victory. “If you’re going to slum it with us lowly media rabble today, you gotta expect we’ll call you in as the big guns.”
She rolled her eyes, already regretting her interest in a story outside her usual White House beat. Curse her curiosity over the bizarre topic, and the fact she’d been stuck for a column idea all week. Catherine took a few steps closer to the front, drawing the eye of the senator.
Hickory blanched in recognition. Not surprising, really, since she’d already obliterated his career once, years ago. Back then he’d come up with the genius suggestion of using “quantitative easing” to solve his state’s budgetary woes.
When she’d asked him, in a live press conference, why he thought Iowa somehow had the power to simply print more federal money, Hickory’s gaping, shocked moment of realization about what his bold idea actually meant had become a viral sensation. The only surprise was that he’d bounced back at all after that humiliation.
But here he was, once again attempting political relevance and promoting the stupidest idea she’d ever heard in her life. And that was saying something.
At least he was consistent.
She cleared her throat and about a dozen half-lidded eyes popped wide open and looked suddenly interested. The reporters around Catherine all shifted slightly away from her, as though afraid any impending fallout from her questions might spatter in their direction. Even so, their tape recorders and microphones swayed toward her, like spokes on a wheel.
Figures. Now they were awake.
“Senator Hickory, Catherine Ayers, from the LA Daily Sentinel.”
Despite the six lanes of traffic crawling along Washington Avenue beside them, it suddenly seemed silent as a church.
“Yes, the Sentinel’s infamous DC bureau chief. Should I be honored you’ve deemed my little press conference worthy?”
His snark needed work.
“Senator, as I understand it, your idea for solving the veterans’ health-care claim backlog is to implant each person with a data chip in the left hand, between their thumb and index finger—”
“It’s so small! The size of a grain of rice—”
“—so, when they seek assistance, they have to wave their hand across a scanner for their medical data to appear on screen.”
“It’s entirely voluntary,” he said, nodding furiously, “not to mention fast, and it will streamline a complicated process. Even the worst bureaucrat or computer system can’t lose a veteran’s files or confuse them with someone else’s. MediCache is revoluti
onary. Vets are lining up to volunteer for the trial.”
“No doubt because the people who sign on get fast-tracked for treatment over the rest. Are you really suggesting that because our government’s systems are so awful, we should outsource medical records to a patient’s own anatomy?”
“Lost medical histories could cost lives. And if this fixes it, why not?”
“What about privacy laws?” Catherine countered. “And how the current technology is so unsecured that any veteran walking past any radio frequency ID scanner would have their medical results pop up instantly?”
The reporters tittered.
There was an indignant sound from Hickory. “Did you forget the part about it being voluntary, Ms. Ayers? Want me to look that up in a dictionary for you?”
Catherine’s smile turned dangerous. “I really don’t think you, of all people, should be lecturing me on misunderstood definitions. Do you?”
At his momentary silence, satisfaction flooded through her.
The surrounding snickers made the redness rise up his neck. Hickory’s jaw worked. He turned to the rest of the gathering. “Are there any other questions?” His tone was faintly desperate now.
“I have just one more,” Catherine said.
“Anyone?” His gaze roamed the crowd.
Catherine glimpsed a familiar profile out of the corner of her eye. Her heart did its usual pleased flip at the sight of her fiancée. She kept her professional mask firmly affixed and tried not to react when Lauren quietly stepped up beside her.
The senator sagged at the absence of other questions. “Well, if that’s all,” he said, shuffling his papers and turning to leave.
“One more,” Catherine tried again. “If this is such a brilliant idea, Senator, when are you getting your own data chip embedded? For solidarity with the vets?”
The group burst into laughter.
The slumbering vet suddenly jerked awake. “The hell?” he grumbled.
“It’d make a great photo op, too,” Catherine continued, her tone droll. “Just name the day and time. You’d have plenty of volunteers to capture the moment.” She gestured to the other reporters who called out a few cheers of approval and suggestions.
