by Fiona Zedde
“This place is yours, Rémi?”
“Yes, ma’am. With a little help from an investor or two.” Her gaze moved briefly to Dez.
Claudia’s surprised smile widened. “I see.”
When the waitress bent over the table with her full tray, Sage switched her empty martini glass for a full one and slipped the D-cup server a twenty-dollar tip.
“You keep that up and you’ll buy her for the night,” Dez murmured, watching the girl walk off with a come-fuck-me sway to her hips. Then she remembered that her mother was there.
Claudia’s eyes twinkled. “Is that what you spend your money on?”
Dez shook her head. “I don’t have to pay for mine, Ma.” Her mother laughed outright then. “Let me go before you girls scandalize me any further.” She stood up. “By the way, Rémi, please pass on my compliments to your chef. The calamari is absolutely beyond compare. The best I’ve had in a long time, if not ever.”
“I’ll let Rochelle know, Mrs. N,” Rémi said. “Thanks.” They watched Claudia go in silence. Dez had told Rémi about the cancer a few weeks before during one of their quieter moments. She smiled at Dez. “Mrs. N looks great.”
“Of course, she’s my mother.”
Nuria made a laughing noise. “That’s our Dez, modest to a fault.” She sipped her margarita to hide the not-so-nice look she shot Dez. She was jealous. Maddeningly and incomprehensibly jealous, just because Dez wanted someone who was not her. It was driving them both crazy. Dez could count on all her digits and appendages the times she’d told Nuria that nothing would ever happen between them. They were friends. She did not fuck her friends, no matter how hot and willing they were. This “conversation” had been happening since college and things weren’t going to change now. Nuria liked her sex with a little spice, and if half the things she told them about her escapades were true, she and Dez would have gotten along very well together in bed. But it was never going to happen. Nuria, however, was persistent. For a cynic, she really was very hopeful.
Dez finished her scotch and signaled the waitress for another one. It was going to be a very long night.
Chapter 26
“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” Dez whispered into the springy nest of Victoria’s hair.
She chuckled and slid her palms up under the back of Dez’s shirt. “It’s barely two o’clock. You’ve been up for what, an hour already?”
“But it’s been a very long hour.” On the way over to Victoriana’s she’d called herself all kinds of stupid for wanting to see the bookstore owner so badly, especially knowing that she probably wouldn’t be able to get anything more than a hug. But her body was glad she came, especially after the night spent in Nuria’s snarking company. Her friend’s comments—a constant reminder of how much Dez wanted Victoria and not her—released her from the self-imposed exile. She wanted to be with this woman, so why not?
Dez sniffed appreciatively in the front of her blouse, inhaling the subtle mixture of baby powder, tangerines, and sweat between her breasts. Beyond the closed office door, the bookstore buzzed on with its steady stream of Sunday customers.
“I know that I can’t have you for too long. I just wanted to give you this.” She pressed a package of still-warm zucchini muffins in her hand.
Victoria chuckled. “You’re going to make me fat.”
“I like to see you eat.” She nuzzled her throat and pressed her fingers into the curve of Victoria’s waist. When she pulled back, the other woman looked warm and bothered with her nipples rising up behind her cotton blouse and her eyes half-closed. Her mouth begged to be kissed. But she was wearing lipstick. So Dez settled for a few more seconds at her throat. She honestly just wanted to sink inside her and never move again.
“Meet me at my house tonight. I have a surprise for you.” Victoria purred and leaned even closer. “I like surprises.” “Good.” She palmed her ass through the skirt. “Now get back to work before I change my mind about being good.”
Laughter bubbled up in Victoria’s throat as she turned from Dez to open the door. “See you tonight.”
The woman behind the counter, Marta, Dez thought her name was, spared them a brief glance as they walked out of the office together. Dez waved good-bye to Victoria and dodged the bookstore full of women in various stages of browsing and headed for the stairs. She felt like whistling.
“Hey, Dez. Where you heading off to in such a hurry?” For a moment she froze, guilt making her go fifteen degrees colder. She faltered on the stairs with a hand on the banister. Then she chided herself for acting like the other woman in some trashy hetero drama. She’d been caught in worse situations than this and acted more innocent.
“Hey, Derrick. What’s going on?”
Her brother, who looked nothing like a lawyer today in his baggy jeans and a designer T-shirt, stood a couple of steps below her on the stairs. “Not much. Just coming by to see Tori. I didn’t know you knew about this place.”
“Well, you know, unlike your kind, dykes don’t have many places to go in this town.”
“Hey, calm down. We called a truce, remember?”
A woman slid between them on the stairs. “Excuse me,” she said, giving them a censuring eye.
“Sorry. Old bad habits and all that.”
He shook his head but didn’t seem offended. “I came to take Tori to lunch. Do you want to come with us? There’s always room for one more.”
Generous. Unexpected. “No.” Then she remembered herself. “After the way we acted when she saw us last together, I doubt she would appreciate my presence.”
“I know an excuse when I hear it. You don’t want to come and that’s cool.” He turned to walk up the stairs. “See you around.”
Shit. “Then again, since you asked so nicely.” She jogged up behind him. He turned to her with a look of surprise and a smile.
“What?” she asked. “Changed your mind already?”
He chose to ignore that. Dez bounced up beside him as he approached Victoria, then waited respectfully while his friend helped a customer find a book. With the crisp smell of books and the prim way the blouse fit over her breasts before falling over the waistband of her skirt, Dez was reminded powerfully of that first fantasy of Victoria she’d had, of pushing her against the back wall of a library and fucking her until her hair flew out of its pins and her blouse drooped off her damp shoulders. She shifted in her jeans and turned to look elsewhere.
“Derrick. You’re just on time, as usual.” She brushed his cheek with a light kiss. “Let me get my bag.” Then she noticed Dez. Before she could speak, Derrick did.
“You remember my sister, don’t you? I invited her to come with us. I hope you don’t mind. She won’t make trouble like last time.” He glanced at his twin. “Right, Dez?”
“Trouble’s no friend of mine.” She slid her hands in her back pockets and looked back at Victoria. “I’ll be on my absolute best behavior.” Her lover blinked.
Derrick took them to a little restaurant not far from the bookstore, a place she’d been before and came to regularly when she was in the mood for seafood. With the stirrings of irrational jealousy, Dez watched as Derrick held Victoria’s chair for her and sat down at her right side. The brunch crowd was just beginning to taper off and some of the waitstaff looked a little tired from the rush. They weren’t seated at the table long before a waitress, a perky little thing with short, muscular legs and wire-rimmed glasses perched on her nose, came over to take their order. She flirted shamelessly with the whole table, especially Derrick who tried to look humbled by her attention.
“The seafood here is good,” Victoria said after a long silence, seemingly resigned to being trapped between the Nichols twins.
“But the dessert is even better.” Dez happened to look up past Victoria then and caught their waitress’s eyes on her. She smiled then deliberately turned her gaze away.
“Really? Do you come here a lot?”
“No. Once or twice. Nothing too regular.”
“Do you know our waitress?” Why the hell would Derrick ask her that question now?
She made a vague noise and moved her sweating glass of water two inches to the left.
“What do you mean? You’ve known her once or twice?” Derrick asked. “Nothing too regular.”
She felt her face warm under her brother’s laughing regard.
“If Dez weren’t so finicky about her hygiene and health I’d worry about her and all these women she runs around with.”
She was careful not to look at Victoria. “Let’s not talk about me right now, Derrick. That’s obviously a boring subject.”
“No, no. I’m very interested.” Victoria smiled at her best friend before turning to Dez. “Go on.”
Dez cleared her throat. “There’s nothing to tell. Tales of my sexual appetite have been greatly exaggerated.” Then the waitress came back, liberally sprinkling her sexy bookworm charm over all three occupants of the table. When she leaned over to serve Victoria’s frittata and salad, Victoria put a hand on the girl’s arm. “Tell me,” she said with a warm smile. “Have you slept with Dez?”
The girl looked surprised. “Dez?”
“This one right here.”
“Oh.” Her eyes met Dez’s and her small shrug seemed to apologize beforehand. “Just once. But it was ages ago.” She finished serving their food and sashayed off to another table.
“Well, that answers that question.” Dez cleared her throat again and reached for her water. “Now let’s move on to something else.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush before, Dez.”
“And you won’t live to see it again if you don’t quit busting my balls.” She pointed her knife at Derrick before cutting into the long strands of linguini in cream sauce on her plate.
He let it go, reluctantly. Victoria’s eyes flickered to Dez as she ate, but were unreadable. Was she hurt? Upset? There was no bargain between them, and Dez had made it clear in the beginning that their relationship was about sex and nothing more. Then why did she feel like apologizing? The girl was over a month in the past, a fun quick lay to get through one boring Saturday afternoon. Nothing special. Why had she decided to come here again? Oh yeah, that devil and the urge to meet her brother halfway in this. His friendship bid. What did she think, that Victoria was going to tell all about their arrangement then declare her undying love for Dez so they could go back to her place and fuck? Who the hell knew? Certainly not her.
Dez pried apart her clams, sucked the succulent salty flesh into her mouth while her lover and her brother talked about who knows what nonsense concerning only the two of them.
“I’m thinking about having a birthday party at the beach. Will you come?”
The resulting silence let Dez know that someone was talking to her. “What?”
Her brother repeated the question.
“Sure, I’ll come. After all, it’s my birthday, too. Isn’t it a bit soon to be planning for it?”
Dez poured out the extra cream sauce from her still-steaming plate of fettuccini into a separate bowl, then dissolved a pat of butter into it. She stirred it with a spoon. Derrick shook the pepper shaker over the brew a couple of times.
“It’s already February.”
“Seriously?” She did a quick count of the days. Spring was coming soon. And their birthday usually fell around the first day of the season. March twentieth. “I guess it just goes to show how much I’ve been paying attention.”
“You forget your own birthday?” Victoria smiled, watching Derrick, then Dez, dip small ovals of toasted bread into the small bowl of buttery cream sauce.
“Not often.” Dez bit into her bread and chewed slowly, rolling the creamy sauce and doughy honey wheat bread over her tongue. “But don’t worry, there are certain things that I never forget.” She fell naturally into flirt mode, even with her brother sitting there.
“Like . . . ?”
Dez licked her lips and smiled. “Like what a particular woman likes and how she likes it.”
“Leave Tori alone, Dez. She’s not your type.”
Both women looked at him. “What exactly is my type?” Dez asked.
“Easy.”
A burst of startled laughter escaped her. It was true. Usually if a woman wasn’t willing after a certain amount of time, she moved on to one who was. Dez was never one to like a challenge. She left those difficult women to Rémi. “True enough.” Her smile became positively lecherous. “But it doesn’t hurt to look.”
“Look somewhere else. Tori isn’t interested.”
“I like how you’re answering for me like I’m not here, Derrick,” Victoria said.
“What? I’m just stating the obvious. Am I wrong?” He looked from one woman to the other. “Nothing against my sister. She’s a gorgeous woman—good looks run in the family after all—but I can more easily see you with a man than with Dez.”
“Damn, Derrick.” Dez didn’t know whether to be insulted at the disparaging remark against her character or pleased that she’d managed to wear down Victoria’s apparently legendary virtue. Her lover was paying close attention to her meal, delicately picking through her frittata for pieces of spicy chorizo that she slid past her speechless lips. “I’d hate to think of what kind of woman you think deserves my attention.”
“For a long time I thought you and Rémi would end up getting together.”
“What?” Dez chuckled at the thought of her and her best friend in any sort of relationship. They’d probably spend most of their time trying to out-fuck each other. “I’m surprised you get laid as often as you do for someone who knows so little about women.”
Victoria snickered around her fork. “Stop it, you two. Let’s move on to more interesting topics of conversation. Please.”
Dez obliged by smoothly asking about the state’s current policy on gays and adoption, a topic that all three had strong opinions on and took them all the way through the rest of their meal and the car ride back to the bookstore. In the parking lot, Dez left them to enjoy the rest of their day, claiming exhaustion as her excuse.
“I hope to see you again soon,” she said to her lover.
Victoria smiled.
At nine that night, Victoria called. “I’m sorry, Dez. I can’t come over tonight.” Her voice sounded weak.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.” An awkward laugh floated over the phone lines.
“My period started this evening.”
“Cramps?”
“Yeah. A little. Actually a lot. I just took something. Right now I’m waiting for it to kick in.” Sheets rustled in the background.
“Hm.” She glanced at the table set for two with its candles waiting to be lit and the gift-wrapped red leather bustier and matching panties she’d picked up earlier that day. “Listen, I’m coming over. Leave the door unlocked for me. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Between pulling her pants on, putting the food away, and grabbing the necessary supplies from the kitchen and bedroom, it actually took her twenty minutes to get to Victoria’s door.
“I’m here,” she called out before locking the door behind her and heading into her lover’s kitchen.
After putting the kettle on the stove, she went upstairs to find Victoria.
“Hey, there.”
Victoria sat by the window in a white wicker chair with a blanket pulled over her hips. Her multicolored curls floated around her face, framing its vulnerable softness. The book in her lap fluttered closed when she looked up. She didn’t bother to keep her place, just rested a hand lightly on her belly and leaned back in the chair to watch as Dez came closer.
“I can’t believe you’re here. This is not the sexiest way to see me.”
Dez smiled as she knelt by Victoria’s chair and took her hands. She placed warm kisses in both her palms. “I’m sure you didn’t know this, but I actually have a bit of a fetish for bleeding women.” Her smile turned positively rakish, and Victoria laughed weakly. “How
are you feeling?”
“Better. The pills are doing something, but I still feel like shit. At least I don’t feel like an elephant is trying to pass through my tubes.”
“I have the perfect remedy for you. Get in bed. I’ll be right back.”
Downstairs, she made a pot of raspberry tea sweetened with honey and filled the hot water bottle with water. Her mother did this for her when she was young and it never failed to make her feel better.
“Here, drink this.” She wrapped Victoria’s hands around the warm mug of tea.
Dez sat on the edge of the bed and checked the water bottle to make certain the cap was secure. Victoria sniffed the steaming brew before touching her pursed lips to the rim of the mug. She took two long sips, then a third before sitting back against the plumped pillows.
“This is very good. Thank you.”
“And now for the other,” Dez said. “If you’ll allow me.” Victoria watched her before nodding to give permission. Dez lifted the T-shirt away from her belly, baring it to her gaze. Victoria’s eyes fluttered closed, but she said nothing. When Dez put the bottle across her bare stomach, she jumped.
“Is it too hot?”
“No, it’s . . . it’s just a bit of a surprise.” A smile drifted across her face and she relaxed even more into the sheets. “God! It feels really good.”
Dez laughed. “Then my job is done.” She sat back in the chair that Victoria just vacated and put up her feet. “Lay back and drink your tea. I’ll leave after you fall asleep.”
But Victoria did not sleep. She finished her tea and sank deeper and deeper into the pillows. “This was very unexpected, you know.” She smiled. “It’s almost better than what we had planned.”
“A hot toddy and bed rest are better than sex with me?” Dez rolled her head to look at Victoria’s soft form on the bed. “Don’t say that too loud. I have a reputation to maintain.”
“I said ‘almost.’ It’s a very far second.” She put her empty teacup on the bedside table. “But it was exactly what I needed. Thank you.”
