Change of Pace

by Radclyffe

  “What—?” Rian protested.

  “Wait. There’s more.”

  More. There’s always more with you. More tenderness, more patience, more understanding...so much more than I ever imagined.

  “Oh,” Rian moaned as Bren very slowly and very gently removed each article of her clothing. As each button was loosed, each barrier shed, Bren stroked the newly exposed skin with her fingers and her mouth. Neither of them spoke, but by the time Rian stood nude before her lover, they were both flushed and Rian was trembling. Bren wrapped her in a white chenille robe, held her close with an encircling arm, and poured two glasses of champagne with her free hand. She handed one flute to Rian and lifted the other in a small salute.

  “I plan on spoiling you tonight,” Bren said, her voice husky with promise. She opened the door to the bathroom and drew Rian inside. A huge sunken tub was filled to the top with steaming water. Rose petals floated on the surface amidst the delicate suds from a scented bath gel. The air was heavy with their mingled perfume, suffusing Rian with a languid sense of ripe sensuality.

  “I just filled the tub, so the water is still hot.” Bren eased the robe from Rian’s shoulders and guided her to the single stair and down into the bath.

  Rian slid into the silky, soothing water, groaning as the knots of tension in her muscles relaxed. She leaned her head back against the contoured edge of the tub and surveyed Bren through half-closed eyelids. “I’m appropriately spoiled.”

  “Not just yet you’re not.” Bren settled a hip on the broad rim of the tub and lifted the crystal champagne flute to her lips while casting an admiring glance over the creamy expanse of shoulders and curve of breasts exposed above the light layer of suds. A faint sheen of perspiration misted Rian’s lips, and she leaned forward to brush the tiny droplets away with a kiss. When she spoke against Rian’s mouth, her voice was tight. “You’re so beautiful. I want to touch you everywhere.” She put her champagne aside. “Let me bathe you.”

  Rian smiled slowly and held out her hand. “Join me.”

  “Mmm, soon,” Bren replied, slipping out of her robe before reaching for a large, soft sponge. She scooped up the fragrant suds and began to lightly massage Rian’s arms and shoulders.

  Rian groaned again, arching her body upward, her breasts emerging from the water pink from the warmth, nipples puckering in the cooler air. She looked at Bren’s handsome face bending near and felt the dark intensity of her lover’s eyes on her skin. She recognized the desire swirling there. And she asked a question she had never asked before, not even sure why she needed to know. “Why do you love me?”

  Bren’s eyes grew pensive as she traced one finger down the outer edge of Rian’s breast. She brushed her palms over Rian’s breasts, lingering a mere instant on her nipples, teasing out a soft moan.

  “The first time I saw you, I knew I had never seen anyone like you before.” She returned to Rian’s breasts, lifting them softly in her hands, thumb and forefinger squeezing the tense nipples. Rian bit her bottom lip and pushed into Bren’s hands. Bren continued, her voice dreamy. “Your eyes are so fierce, and so tender. Your face is so strong, and terribly gentle. Your beauty makes my heart ache.”

  “Bren,” Rian murmured helplessly.

  “The first time I touched you, I knew I had never touched anyone as desirable as you.” Bren glided her hands under the surface of the water and beneath Rian’s legs. She began to slowly knead the calves, working her fingers deeply into the taut muscles. She reached Rian’s feet, her deft surgeon’s hands massaging the fine bones and tendons rhythmically.

  Rian groaned, sinking deeper into the warmth, seduced by the intoxicating pleasure of Bren’s ministrations.

  “You excite me as no one ever has,” Bren whispered. She stroked the length of each toe, rubbing the pads with her thumbs. “You make me weak with wanting you.”

  Rian slowly opened her eyes only to find her vision blurred by desire. Her body was humming, her blood racing with need. She brushed one hand unconsciously over her breasts. They throbbed to be touched, and she flicked her nipple with one finger. Her stomach clenched as the electricity streaked down into her thighs. “I want you next to me.”

  “Soon.” Bren edged her legs into the tub and smoothed the fingers of both hands up the inside of Rian’s legs. She made teasing circles over the sleek inner thighs, gliding on the soap-softened skin, reaching higher with each pass. Her fingers glanced over soft curls, and Rian cried out. “You are every dream I have ever dared dream.”

  Words spoken so softly they were like another caress.

  “Now, please.” Rian lifted her hips, sending small ripples across the surface of the water. “I need you to touch me. I need you so much.”

  Silently, Bren slipped into the water and moved behind Rian to cradle her in her arms. She nestled her cheek to Rian’s, pressed her breasts against Rian’s back, and cupped her palms beneath Rian’s breasts. “I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

  “Promise.”

  “Swear.”

  “Good.” Rian leaned her head back against Bren’s chest, curled her fingers around the strong arms that encircled her, and guided the broad hands down over her belly. She led Bren’s fingers between her thighs, her breath catching as she felt the first exquisite touch. “Oh. There. That’s so nice,” she breathed. “I never would have believed anyone could do this to me. You own my soul.”

  “You,” Bren whispered, her lips against Rian’s neck, “are my heart’s desire.” She closed her eyes as she slipped her fingers slowly into Rian’s warm depths, groaning quietly as she was immediately enclosed in the velvet grip. With her other hand, she caressed the firm clitoris.

  Rian’s legs tightened and her hips rocked, creating currents in the water that ebbed and flowed around them, keeping time with Bren’s long, smooth strokes. Her breath grew ragged and short as her senses spiraled down to center in the nerve endings sparking deep within her. Blood pounded and pulsed through her belly, her muscles quivered, and her heart thudded erratically. She was so very close, and so very ready.

  “I’m going to come for you,” Rian gasped. She closed her fingers hard around Bren’s wrist, pressing the hand inside her deeper still, riding the tantalizing length of those fingers as Bren’s palm massaged her stiff clitoris. She teased her own nipples, igniting the first wisps of orgasm. “Oh, yes. I am. I am.”

  “I can feel you coming,” Bren murmured in wonder. “Oh, God, I can feel you, baby.”

  Rian crooned her delight, small sighs and murmurs that blended and grew louder as she neared the point where consciousness shatters and sensation rules. With one deep tremor she succumbed, shuddering repeatedly within the safe circle of Bren’s embrace. Tears mixed with the warm mist on her cheeks.

  They clung to each other, lost for words to express the wonder they had found together.

  Until, “I love you so much.”

  Two voices, one eternal passion.

  STAGESTRUCK

  There’s nothing quite so lonely as a Saturday night in a strange town on the far side of midnight. In the last twenty-four hours, I’d crossed more than just time zones and thousands of miles—I’d shed one reality for another, let my ordinary life slip away like an unneeded cloak until I arrived halfway around the world a different person. No one knew me other than as the persona I allowed them to see. No one met me at the airport, because I wasn’t scheduled to appear until the next morning. Until then, I was only a name on a program and a face on a flyer.

  Too tired to sleep and too restless to read, I decided to go for a walk, ignoring the concerned expression on the night clerk’s face as I crossed the lobby and stepped out into the dark. As was true in so many cities in the middle of the night, traffic was sparse and pedestrians rare. Nevertheless, the sidewalks were well lit by a combination of streetlamps, neon reflections from store signs, and a surprisingly bright gibbous moon.

  I walked in the direction that the cars were headed, the steady thud of my booted feet on the e
mpty pavement a welcome accompaniment, like the beating of another heart in a darkened room. As soon as I turned the corner, I saw the bold, black letters of the stark white marquee a block away. Grand Hotel. Why not? What better way to spend the last hours of anonymity than with the woman who was famous for her secretiveness and seclusion. As I approached the theater, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see a woman crossing the street at an angle, her path on an intercept with mine. With the lights behind her and her body shrouded in a long military-style coat that came to just below her knees, I could see little of her face and nothing of her body. I knew without doubt, however, that it was a woman by the singularly fluid grace of her movements. She drew near with a purposeful stride as if she were late to meet me and eager to catch up. I slowed to wait, as if our rendezvous were prearranged.

  “Are you going to the theater?”

  Her voice was husky, with a lilting accent that tinged her English with a hint of Scandinavia. Closer now, I could see that she was indeed blond, her eyes blue or green, too muted in the half-light for me to be certain. Her coat billowed with each step, exposing long legs in pale denim and a shirt unbuttoned far enough to reveal that she wore nothing under it.

  “Yes. Do you think it’s too late?”

  “No,” she replied, extending her hand. “I think we’re just in time.”

  I took her hand as if I had a hundred times before.

  Her fingers were long, slender, and cool. Her palm was soft, but with a faint ridge at the base of each finger suggesting that she worked with her hands. I stole another glance at her face, thinking that with her arched cheekbones and full jaw she might have been a model. But there was nothing studied or posed about her. She was at ease in her body in a way that those who made their living with theirs were not.

  “Have you seen it before?” I asked.

  Her full mouth curved into a secret smile. “Many times.”

  She moved even closer as we walked until her shoulder and thigh touched mine, the way a lover’s would, with familiarity and possession. I struggled not to close my fingers tightly around hers as a surge of desire caught me unawares and made me stumble.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Perfect,” I replied, only then realizing that it was true. At the first touch of her hand, I’d forgotten the disquieting sensation of being halfway around the world and a stranger to everyone, even myself. The parts of myself I’d left behind slowly reappeared, sliding into the empty places effortlessly until I remembered who I was and why I had come.

  “Two, please,” she announced as she passed several oddly colored notes through the semicircular hole in the Plexiglas to the bored-looking young man in the booth.

  “Oh no,” I protested, belatedly realizing that we had reached the theater while I had been lost somewhere between yesterday and tomorrow. “You must let me pay.”

  She laughed softly. “It is, as you would say, my treat.”

  I blushed furiously, not at all certain that she meant it the way I took it, but her words brought another flood of arousal from my depths. She cocked an eyebrow at me, then swept her fingers lightly over my cheek and down my neck until her hand cupped my throat. She leaned close, there in the bright lights of the ticket booth, and skimmed her mouth over mine. “We should go in.”

  “Yes,” I breathed, wanting nothing more than more of her mouth.

  The lights went down just as we stepped into the theater, and she guided me through the blackness into the back row, to the far corner seats. There was no one in front of us or to the side. In fact, the other figures in the room were merely faint reminders that we were not alone. Distant images of Garbo and Barrymore flickered on the screen, their words a faint hum beneath the roaring in my ears.

  Her coat fanned out behind her as she shrugged it from her shoulders, and when she extended her arm along the seat behind my back, the tips of her fingers grazed my shoulder. Each fleshy circle was a burning coal that penetrated the cotton to my skin. I leaned against her, and when my breast pressed to her side, my nipple tightened into a pebble of tingling nerves. She curled her arm and drew me closer, shifting to put her mouth against my ear.

  “No one can see.”

  It wasn’t true, but the illusion of invisibility beneath the otherworldly light in the cavernous space was enough. I tugged the shirt from her jeans and rested my hand on her belly. Her stomach tensed as I slowly rubbed my palm over the soft skin, pressing harder as the moments passed, my eyes on the screen but every sense tuned to her. The muscles beneath my fingers quivered and grew rigid, and with a faint moan, she shifted in her seat and spread her legs wide, her knee brushing mine. I knew she would be naked under the denim. The fingers that curved around my upper arm trembled. I could stop, but what would be the point? From the instant she’d taken my hand and I’d let her, our destination had been clear.

  It was my turn to skim my lips over her ear, my breath a teasing kiss. “Are you hard already? Can you feel the seam brush against your clit, just like my lips caressing the tip?”

  “Yes.” Urgent and low.

  My hand moved up, pushing fabric aside to cup her breast, grasping a nipple—already standing up, hard and sensitive, waiting. I squeezed gently. Once more. And again, harder, twisting a little until her body stiffened and another soft gasp escaped her. Her hips lifted, her heart skittering beneath my palm. I lowered my mouth to the other breast, biting through the soft cotton to tug on tender flesh. The gasp became a moan - hers or mine, I wasn’t certain. My clit jerked insistently, keeping time with her racing pulse, and I finally dropped my free hand to my crotch and rubbed the stiff prominence through my pants.

  “Open your jeans,” I murmured against her neck as I drew my tongue along the curve of that beautiful jaw. Her breath, shallow and fast, drowned out the sound of Crawford’s haughty inflections. I glanced down, saw her rip at the button and zipper, and squeezed the fabric between my thighs hard around my own aching need. My clit twitched, my vision blurred, and I had to ease off or come. I tortured her nipple a little more with my teeth to take my mind off the pressure in my clit.

  Her eyes, suddenly bright and clear in the murky light, held mine.

  “Please.”

  I stopped touching myself and pushed my fingers down the front of her pants as she rocked her hips, urging my fingers to find her. God, I wanted to take her fast—to make her come on my fingers, in my hand. I rested my fingertips just above the base of her clitoris, pressing down ever more firmly while circling up and down the stiff length, making it throb as the blood built inside. I knew how it felt, how it hurt in a way that could only be pleasure. Then, one hand stroking through that liquid heat below, I grasped her neck with my free hand and turned her face to mine. I worked my tongue into her mouth, the way I wanted to be working inside her. Turning in the seat, I threw one leg over hers. Clit pounding as I rode her leg, I sucked on her tongue the way I wanted her sucking on me. She bucked on my hand and moaned into my mouth and I forgot why I was waiting. Her need and mine conspired to undo me, and I surrendered willingly.

  I pushed my hand deeper into her pants, my wrist tenting the denim until the zipper bit into my skin. Unmindful of the pain, I slid my fingers into her and angled my arm to get higher, crushing her clit, wet and hard, into my palm. Half lying on her now, my tongue in her mouth, my fingers buried inside, I took her hard and fast, beating her clit with the heel of my hand on each thrust. She pulled away from the kiss and closed her teeth on my neck when she started to come, muffling her cries with my flesh. She clamped down around my fingers as her hips jerked up, her rigid body barely touching the seat, and I felt a breathless, heart-stopping wonder as she came. I was ready to come, needed desperately to come, but in that moment, the only thing that I knew was her pleasure. Only when she slumped back into the seat with a last, long moan did the fury of my desire overtake me. I closed my hand around her still-pulsing sex and lowered my forehead to her chest. Dimly I was aware of her ho
lding me as I shuddered and thrust against her tensed thigh. I choked on my own sobs of pleasure as a dam burst inside me and every barrier dissolved. I came in the arms of a stranger who knew me more intimately in that moment than anyone else in my life.

  We dozed through the rest of the movie. I blamed my torpor on jet lag, but the truth was that I liked the way she held me. When the credits rolled, we straightened our clothing and left before the others. The streets were completely empty, and we walked in silence the few short blocks to my hotel. In the darkness beneath the awning, she leaned down and kissed me, the same knowing brush of lips with which she had first greeted me.

  “Good night,” she said softly.

  I watched her walk away until the billowing edges of her coat became only the shifting shadows of the night. Then I turned and walked inside. It was not the Grand Hotel, and no grand passion awaited me here. But when I finally lay my head upon the crisp, white pillowcase, I felt her body next to mine and her breath against my cheek. I closed my eyes, knowing I would not sleep alone.

  FOUR-STAR ACCOMMODATIONS

  When you pay $300 a night for a room, you expect a little something in the way of special service. This place provided it, in spades. The historic inn had been carefully renovated and every amenity tended to. I knew, because I’d stayed there before, and I appreciated the bed turn-down each night, the small silver-foil-wrapped chocolates on my pillow, the complimentary full breakfast with endless coffee, and the pleasant wait staff.

  Unfortunately, I arrived in less than good humor after having been rerouted on my flight not once but twice, because of mechanical problems with the aircraft. It was nearly 10:00 p.m., I’d been dragging heavy luggage around for hours, and I was, to put it mildly, cranky. When the cab let me off in the gravel drive, I hoisted my suitcases up the four wooden stairs to the office and unceremoniously dumped them in the foyer. The reception desk was tucked into a nook on one side of the anteroom, and beyond it, I could see the sitting area with its thick carpets, lace curtains, and antique sofas and chairs. It was tastefully elegant and undeniably beautiful.