Cruising the Strip

by Radclyffe

  “How about I just watch you here?”

  “And the other things I might want to do?”

  “Anything.”

  “I’m not…I haven’t…I might not be all you bet on.” Melinda suddenly sounded shy and uncertain.

  Eyes still closed, Ari kissed Melinda’s temple and lazily caressed her back. “Don’t worry; I know all I need to know. After this, I’d bet on you blind.”

  All In

  by Radclyffe

  Dr. Saxon Sinclair contemplated her Scotch rocks and watched the third man in five minutes try to pick up the blonde sitting opposite her at the horseshoe shaped bar that occupied one corner of the Palace casino lounge. She didn’t ordinarily spend her nights in a bar, at least she hadn’t for the last five years. But she couldn’t sleep and her suite, although spacious, felt claustrophobic. She wondered briefly if the blonde, a fellow trauma surgeon she’d seen at the meeting just that morning, was having similar difficulties. She obviously wasn’t there to find company for the night, because she quickly dispatched anyone who seemed to be interested. It was possible, Sax supposed, that the only other single woman sitting at the bar was looking for a different sort of companionship than what the men were offering, but Sax hadn’t gotten that vibe the few times their eyes had met. No. She and the blonde were probably both sitting alone at three in the morning for exactly the same reason. A kind of loneliness that went deeper than any physical diversion could assuage.

  “No, really, I’d rather just sit here and relax.” The blonde’s low, musical voice carried surprisingly well despite the cacophony of bells and whistles and constant rumble of voices coming from the gaming floor just beyond the lounge.

  Sax narrowed her eyes as a heavyset middle-aged man in an expensive suit put his arm around the blonde’s shoulders and leaned down to say something else, crowding her at the same time as he made it difficult for her to move away. Again, she murmured no and shook her head, her expression one of forced pleasantness. Sax imagined the woman was trying to avoid a scene. She knew the man, another surgeon. She had met his wife earlier that week at one of the trauma conference social functions that she hadn’t been able to get out of, and remembered him mentioning that his son was a surgical resident somewhere in California. When the blonde signaled no for the third time, Sax felt a surge of anger that brought her to her feet. A woman shouldn’t have to say no even once just because she was sitting alone at a bar. She certainly shouldn’t have to say no three times. Just as Sax took a step forward, one of the Palace’s security guards, recognizable from her understated uniform of dark blazer, white shirt, and dark trousers, as well as by the name tag over her breast pocket and the radio receiver clipped to her ear, appeared as if by magic and tapped the aggressive surgeon on the shoulder. Whatever she said brought a flush to the man’s face and he rapidly strode away. As Sax reclaimed her barstool, she saw the guard murmur a word to the blonde, who fleetingly touched her arm, allowing her fingers to linger for just a moment on the sleeve of the blue blazer. Then the guard, too, disappeared. The exchange had been so brief, Sax doubted anyone would have noticed, but to her, the connection was unmistakable. Her chest tightened and she ached for just a simple touch, just a few seconds of feeling as if she weren’t hopelessly, helplessly adrift.

  “Hey,” a deep voice said as a hand dropped heavily onto Sax’s shoulder. “I called your room and you didn’t answer. Listen, I have to go home.”

  Sax glanced up at her friend and former resident, Quinn Maguire. Some people said they looked alike, but Sax couldn’t see it. They both had black hair and blue eyes, sure, but Quinn was an inch or so shorter and more muscular. And more importantly, Quinn always had an air of calm, steady focus about her that Sax rarely managed, especially lately. Right now though, Quinn appeared anything but calm—her cotton button-down collar shirt was rumpled and untucked, hanging out over her jeans. She wore loafers with no socks and had an expression Sax had never seen before. Panic.

  “What’s the matter?” Sax asked.

  “Nothing,” Quinn exclaimed. “Nothing. Honor called.” Quinn’s face widened into an enormous grin. “She’s in labor. Two weeks early. I gotta go. Sorry to leave you hanging with the panel tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Sax stood to give Quinn a quick squeeze on the arm. “Give Honor my love and call me with an update, okay?”

  “Yeah. Okay. I will.” Quinn turned to go, then looked back, her expression unexpectedly serious. “You’re okay, right?”

  Sax worked up a smile. “Sure, I’m okay. Jesus, you think I can’t get through a twenty minute presentation without you?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Quinn said quietly.

  “I know what you meant.” Sax knew she sounded gruff, but it suddenly felt like she was pushing her words out through ground glass. “Just go, already.”

  “You’ll call me too, with any news, right?”

  Sax nodded.

  “She’s okay, you know,” Quinn said.

  “Yeah,” Sax said roughly. “Sure.”

  Then Quinn was gone and Sax was alone again. Even the blonde was gone. She sat back down, drained her Scotch, and signaled for another. Three weeks. She hadn’t heard from Jude in three weeks. It wasn’t unusual for her to go days, sometimes a week or even a little longer, without hearing from her, but this was the longest it had ever been. If she knew where she was, or even where to start looking, she would have flown to Iraq four days ago instead of Las Vegas. She knew where Jude had been eleven weeks earlier when she’d started out from Fallujah, one of three embedded journalists with a mobile division of the second Marines. After that, Jude’s e-mails had been brief and sporadic and absent of any detail. After five years of being married to a documentary filmmaker, Sax recognized Jude’s attempts to play down just how bad whatever particular natural disaster or human horror she was investigating really was. She was used to Jude being gone, too, sometimes for weeks at a time. This time it was different. This time she felt their connection, which was always so strong no matter where in the world Jude was, grow thinner and thinner until she feared it had snapped. And as the ties to Jude slid through her fingers like so many infinitesimal grains of sand that she tried so desperately to hold in her closed fists, she watched the world around her fade to a gray unreality, as if she were watching life on the screen of an old black-and-white television. She knew Jude would be pissed at her for losing her grip, so she tried to pretend that life went on. She was at the damn conference, wasn’t she?

  She rubbed the back of her neck, tired and so damn lost.

  “Here, why don’t you let me do that?” a husky voice said from behind her as Sax’s hand was replaced by two smaller ones.

  Sax gripped the rounded edges of the shiny black bar top with both hands, struggling for balance. Her head felt as if a bomb had burst inside it. Her voice came out barely a whisper. “Jude?”

  “For your sake, it better be.” Jude’s breasts pressed against Sax’s back as she leaned down and kissed her just below her ear. “Because I’d find out otherwise, and you’d be dead meat, Sinclair.”

  “How?”

  “I saw Quinn grabbing a cab out front. She told me where you were.”

  Sax hadn’t yet glanced back, almost too afraid to discover that she might be hallucinating. Still, when she reached back she grasped a warm hand, rougher than she remembered, but just as strong.

  “No, I mean, how are you here?”

  “Military transport. I got lucky and there was an extra seat at the last second. It was either get on the plane without calling you, or miss it all together. I’ve been traveling about two days.”

  Finally, Sax swiveled on the seat and faced her lover. Right before she left, Jude had cut her shoulder length red hair short. It was shaggy and needed a cut now, falling just above her collar in thick waves. She wore a tan T-shirt and faded khaki camos, and even in the low light of the bar, Sax could tell her pale skin had tanned in the unrelenting desert sun. Clearly exhausted,
she appeared wraithlike, and Sax saw the haunted expression her lover tried to hide with a welcoming smile.

  “Hi, baby,” Jude Castle said, leaning in between Sax’s spread legs and slipping both arms around Sax’s neck. She kissed her firmly, but far too briefly, and then leaned back. “I know you hate these conferences, so I thought I’d drop in and distract you.”

  “Working pretty good so far.” Sax rose and slid her arm around Jude’s waist. “Let’s head upstairs. You look a little tired.”

  Jude laughed shortly. “I look like hell.” She frowned as they started to walk. “You look a little thin, too. And what are you doing up at almost four in the morning?”

  “Hoping to get lucky,” Sax murmured, kissing Jude’s temple.

  “Did you?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  Once upstairs, Sax stripped, lowered the room lights, and turned down the bed while Jude took a quick shower. When Jude walked naked out of the bathroom toweling her hair, Sax’s only thought was to get her into bed and hold her. Hold her where she could rest and be safe. Then she registered the scar, immediately assessing in her surgeon’s mind the barely healed wound on Jude’s abdomen. She was across the room in three long strides.

  “What is this?” Sax demanded, unable to keep her fear from translating into anger. A seven-inch long, angry red ridge wrapped around Jude’s left flank just below her ribs “You didn’t tell me you’d been injured.”

  For a second, Jude seemed confused, then she reflexively covered the area with her hand. “God, I’m so tired I forgot about it. It wasn’t anything much. Just a glancing—”

  Sax spun around and stalked to the far side of the room, which suddenly felt even smaller than it had hours before, when it held only her loneliness. Now there wasn’t enough space to contain her rage, but it wasn’t Jude she wanted to lash out at. With her back still turned, she snarled, “That’s a bullet wound. Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t know if the trajectory had been slightly different you’d be dead right now? Jesus Christ, how could you not tell me?”

  “I knew you’d worry, and I knew I would be all right,” Jude said softly, suddenly right behind Sax. “Baby, you’re shaking.”

  Sax pulled her shoulder away when Jude caressed her. “Don’t. Just…” Her hand was shaking as she swiped the tears that had come out of nowhere too fast for her to stop. Every lost and desolate moment of the last three weeks crashed down on her, and she had a soul-destroying image of what life would be if Jude had not come back. “I’m sorry. I can’t…just get in bed. You need to sleep.”

  Jude wrapped her arms around Sax’s body from behind, pressing her breasts to Sax’s back and her cheek to Sax’s shoulder. “That’s not what I need. That’s not what I traveled around the world for. Turn around.”

  Sax had never been able to say no to Jude, and she couldn’t now either. But she didn’t want her to see what must be in her eyes. Desperation, and devastation. Not quite looking at her, Sax grasped Jude’s hand and led her to the bed. Then she drew her down and pulled the covers to their waists as they faced one another. Stroking wet strands of red hair back from Jude’s cheek, she whispered, “Close your eyes. Sleep will be good for you.”

  “When I first got…hurt,” Jude said, her eyes wide and never leaving Sax’s, “the first thing I thought was that I was still alive, and there were others near me who weren’t. I was glad, glad it was them and not me, and part of me knew that was wrong.”

  “No,” Sax said, the agony of imagining Jude wounded making her voice sound harsh. “There is no such thing as justice in war. You were lucky, and it’s okay to be glad.”

  “And then for awhile I didn’t have time to think at all.” As she went on, Jude caressed Sax’s face and Sax gently stroked Jude’s body, taking care not to disturb the freshly healed wound. “When I got my turn with the medic and he was stitching me up, I thought of all the times I’d filmed you doing the same thing. Saving lives. I missed you so much right then.”

  “I would’ve come over there, if I’d known you were hurt.”

  Jude smiled and traced her fingertips over Sax’s mouth. “I know. But I really wasn’t in danger. After a few days, I wasn’t even sore. It just looks bad.”

  “You forget who I am,” Sax grumbled, capturing Jude’s hand and rubbing it against her cheek. “Don’t try to snow me.”

  “Baby, I’ll never forget who you are.” Jude shifted closer, pressing her breasts to Sax’s and tilting her hips until their lower bodies fused. “I’m sorry you were scared.”

  “Terrified,” Sax said hoarsely.

  “When it was bad,” Jude whispered, “worse than bad, and I felt things inside of me breaking…”

  Sax groaned and cradled Jude’s face against her throat, stroking her hair. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.”

  “I knew,” Jude said, her mouth against Sax’s skin, “you’d heal me.” She tilted her face up, trembling in Sax’s arms. “Please, baby. I don’t need sleep. I don’t need food. I don’t even need you to take the nightmares away. It was hot, always so hot, and I’m still cold. I need you to make me feel again.”

  “I need you in order to live,” Sax murmured, gently pushing Jude onto her back. She settled her hips between Jude’s legs and held her body above her, braced on her forearms. “Are you sure you’re not hurting too much?”

  “I need you.” Jude wrapped her legs around the back of Sax’s thighs, lifting into her, pressing as tightly as she could. “Inside me. It’s all I’ve been able to think about since I left there.”

  Sax wanted to be inside her—inside her body, inside her heart, inside her soul. She wanted to bleed into her, until their very cells were indistinguishable. She wanted her so badly she was afraid. Tenderly, carefully, she spread her fingers through Jude’s tangle of still strangely short hair, and kissed her eyelids, her temples, the corners of her mouth. Jude smelled fresh and clean from the shower, her skin faintly roughened from the wind and sun. Sax traced the edge of Jude’s jaw with the tip of her tongue, then trailed kisses down her neck. The stress of holding back the flash fire burning through her, coupled with her anxiety over going too fast, sent her already on-the-edge nervous system into overdrive. She struggled for breath as her body quivered uncontrollably.

  “Oh, baby,” Jude murmured, caressing Sax’s back and ass with long, urgent strokes. “Oh, baby, don’t hold back. You need me. And god, I love that you do.” She knew just how to break Sax’s control, and as she gripped Sax tighter with her legs, she bit down hard on the thick muscle that slanted from Sax’s neck to her shoulder.

  “God!” Sax roared, rearing her head back and trying to pull away. “You don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll hurt you!”

  “No, you won’t,” Jude said fiercely. “You can’t. Please, please, help me!”

  Jude’s tears did what nothing else could. They penetrated the shroud of desperation and fear that had clouded Sax’s mind and heart for weeks. She saw her lover clearly, saw her need, saw her vulnerability. And reflected in her lover’s eyes, she saw herself—slowly dying for want of this woman. Rocking back on her knees, Sax placed her palm between Jude’s breasts and spread her fingers, bracing herself as she brought her other arm between Jude’s legs and entered her. She knew this woman, this body, this flesh that welcomed her, and she buried herself there. Jude bucked off the bed, her voice a strangled scream, and Sax held her down as she thrust into her.

  “You feel me?” Sax rasped, the muscles in her chest and arms straining as she held herself in check even as she pushed deeper. She rolled her thumb over Jude’s clitoris until it hardened. “Can you?”

  “Yes,” Jude cried, her heels digging into Sax’s legs as she forced herself harder against Sax’s hand. “Deeper, please, deeper. Oh god.”

  Sweat dripped from Sax’s face onto Jude’s, mixing with her lover’s tears, as she filled her again and again. Jude strained and writhed beneath her, struggling to climax. Her head whipped from side to side, her breath t
orn from her in strangled moans.

  Jude’s eyes opened wide, her face a mask of agonized need. “I can’t. Oh god, I can’t feel…I can’t…”

  Instantly, Sax stilled, panting to pull air into lungs that burned. Her arms trembled, her stomach was rigid with her own need for release, but she forced her voice to be quiet and calm. “It’s okay. Just breathe for a second. Breathe, baby.”

  Tears leaked from Jude’s eyes as she gasped for breath, and Sax stretched out beside her, cradling her face against her chest. She stroked her sweat-soaked hair. “It’s okay, baby.”

  “I need…Oh god, I feel numb. I can’t and I need…”

  Jude’s heart pounded against Sax’s breast, erratic and urgent. Sax cupped Jude’s face and brushed her thumb over Jude’s mouth. “Look at me. Look at me, baby.”

  When Jude focused on her, Sax whispered, “Stay with me. Stay right here with me.” Then she reached down and began to stroke her. When Jude whimpered and thrust against her hand, Sax kissed her and whispered again, “Look at me. Just look at me and know I love you more than life.”

  “I need you to make me come,” Jude moaned, clinging to Sax’s shoulders, her back arching with the growing pressure. “Need you. Need you so much.”

  “I’m here.” Sax felt the rapid pulsations in the swollen flesh beneath her fingers that signaled Jude’s gathering climax. She bore down on Jude’s clitoris, giving her the short, firm strokes she knew she needed to push her over the edge.

  Jude closed her eyes, crying out her pleasure, and then Sax filled her again. She turned Jude on her back, riding Jude’s leg as she pushed into her, stroke after deep stroke. Sax came swiftly with her clitoris crushed to Jude’s hard thigh, and Jude came a second time and then a third. Sax didn’t stop until her strength gave out and she collapsed into Jude’s arms.

  “You okay?” Sax gasped, unable to raise her head from Jude’s shoulder. She felt Jude weakly caress her neck.