by Radclyffe
As she slowed and turned the corner, she saw a familiar figure leaning against the wall just outside the women’s locker room. Her heart leapt. “Pearce!”
Pearce grinned. She’d been waiting, hoping that she’d catch Wynter after the meeting. “You look hap—” She stopped when Wynter raced toward her. As if she had done it a thousand times, Pearce opened her arms and Wynter flew into them. Lifting Wynter’s feet a few inches off the ground, Pearce held her around the waist and spun her in a half circle. When she set her down, they were both laughing, their bodies pressed together and arms entwined.
“I guess you saw the chief, huh?” Pearce said. “Congratulations.”
“You knew?” Wynter said in astonishment.
“Just a little while ago. I didn’t want to spoil it for you.”
“Isn’t it great?”
“Terrific.” Pearce gave her a squeeze. “I’m really glad.”
“You’re okay with it?” Wynter asked softly. “I mean, we’ll be in the same year now.”
Several residents passed by, but Pearce never even gave them a glance. Wynter was still holding on to her, their bodies pressed together, their foreheads nearly touching. She marveled at what happiness did to Wynter’s eyes, making their blue irises blaze with an untamed excitement that captivated her more deeply than any lust she might have encountered in another woman’s gaze. Wynter’s pure and simple joy gave her more pleasure than anything she’d ever known. She wanted to kiss her. She wanted to breathe in her pleasure and ride her wild joy. She wanted to be the source of that happiness every bit as fervently as she wanted to taste it.
“Oh, baby, of course I’m okay with it,” Pearce murmured. “You deserve it.”
Wynter’s lips parted and she stared into Pearce’s eyes. Then she whispered gently, “Thank you,” and eased away until their embrace broke. She felt Pearce’s arms drop from around her waist and saw Pearce’s expression shutter closed, but not before she had seen what was in her eyes. In the few seconds before Pearce brought her iron will to bear, Wynter had caught a glimpse of the same naked craving she had seen there once so long ago. But this time, the desire had been far more intense. This time, Pearce wasn’t a stranger who took her by surprise and whisked her away to an isolated corner to sweetly seduce her with a moment of respite and escape from a life that suddenly seemed unbearably foreign. This was a woman she knew and respected and cared for. And she understood in that instant, more clearly than she ever had before, that Pearce was a woman for whom it was natural to desire the touch of another woman. She felt it in the fine trembling of Pearce’s body and witnessed it in the arousal that had fleetingly escaped the mask Pearce usually wore. Wynter knew that she had finally seen Pearce Rifkin.
“I haven’t had anything to eat for hours,” Wynter said quietly. “Can I treat you to dinner across the street? I think it’s my turn.”
“I…uh…” Pearce was a bit dazed. She’d come close to crossing a line, and she wasn’t even certain why she hadn’t. She’d been with women since she was seventeen years old, and some of them had been straight and a few had been married. She didn’t have any political or philosophical objections to it. Her body couldn’t help responding to Wynter, and she sensed—as she had the very first time they’d met—that if she pushed just a little bit, Wynter would be willing. But she just couldn’t do it. She drew a ragged breath. “Thanks. I…I think I’ll take a rain check. I’ve still got a few patients to see.”
Wynter hid her disappointment behind a smile. “And you’re still post call, and you still should be going home.”
“I will. Promise.” Pearce started walking backward, putting some much-needed distance between them. “I’m just going to check a few X-rays and I’ll be gone.”
“Don’t forget about the TLA tomorrow night,” Wynter said.
Pearce hesitated, knowing now was the time to break the spell before Wynter’s hold on her grew any stronger. She hadn’t been able to think of anything else all week except Friday night and being with Wynter, and being around Wynter was beginning to hurt. Idiot, she muttered.
“What did you say?” Wynter called.
“I said…” Pearce took a deep breath. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there.”
Chapter Nineteen
Wynter tilted the cream-colored silk lampshade rimmed with fringe the color of warm caramel toward the broad, bevel-edged mirror above her bedroom dresser. Both items had been in her family for generations, and she’d come to love them even though the lamp didn’t provide much light, having been designed for an era when a muted glow that softened the features was desirable. Squinting, she assessed the damage wrought by the previous sleepless night on call. Judiciously applied makeup had covered the worst of the fatigue lines and blunted the obvious shadows beneath her eyes. She’d had a nap when Ronnie had finally tired in the midafternoon, and they’d both fallen asleep while she’d been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
“I don’t know, honey,” she murmured to Ronnie, who sat in the middle of the floor intently covering pages of her coloring book in bright primary colors. “Clinique might not be enough tonight.”
Ronnie held up a Jackson Pollack reproduction with exuberant pride.
“Beautiful!” Wynter proclaimed. “Maybe I should try crayons instead of blush. Maybe then I won’t resemble the walking dead.”
She jumped when a voice behind her said, “Maybe you should stay home and get some sleep.”
Wynter turned, a hand on her hip, and gave Mina an arch look. “You’re the one who’s always telling me I should get out more.”
“And it’s true, but I didn’t mean after you’d been up for thirty-six hours.” She dangled the house keys in her right hand. “You didn’t answer your bell, so I let myself in.” She indicated the mug in her hand. “Then I made tea.”
“Sorry. We were taking a bath.”
Mina sniffed and murmured appreciatively. “I just love the smell of baby powder.”
Wynter laughed. “I actually feel fine. I slept some this afternoon. Besides, I’ve been looking forward to this all week. There’s no way I’m not going.”
“You look nice,” Mina observed as she took in Wynter’s brown leather pants, matching boots, and forest green silk blouse. Small square emerald earrings set in gold glinted through the strands of her red-blond hair, which she wore loose and down to her shoulders.
“Thanks.”
Mina turned at the sound of a shout from below. “That’s Ken. The kids were getting ready to watch a movie, and they’re probably getting impatient.”
“Stay there, I’ll bring Ronnie down.” Wynter collected Ronnie and her coloring books and led her by the hand from the room. A few minutes later, she returned. “Thanks for watching her tonight. You’ve got her all week and then—”
“Kids are like dogs,” Mina said. “After two, what’s one more? You might as well let her sleep the night and just come over in the morning to get her. If you don’t sleep in, you can have breakfast with us.”
“That sounds great.” Wynter made a few final adjustments to her hair.
“So,” Mina said as she made her way around a pile of unpacked boxes to the bed and lowered herself with a sigh. “Is this a date?”
Wynter grew still. “I’m going with Pearce.”
“I know that, but that’s not what I asked.”
“We’re friends.”
“Uh-huh.” Mina sipped her tea. “Do you remember when you and Ken were medical students, and we invited you over to dinner for the first time?”
Wynter smiled. “Yes.”
“That was my idea.”
“That was really nice of you.”
“Not really.”
Wynter studied Mina curiously. “What do you mean?”
“I wanted to get a look at you. You were Ken’s study partner, and he spent hours with you every day—more than he spent with me. He talked about you all the time. I wanted to see if you were competition.”
“Me?�
�� Wynter’s eyes went wide. “You’re serious?”
“Of course I’m serious. Men and women don’t usually form simple friendships, not if they’re both straight. The sex thing gets in the way.” Mina set her tea aside as the sentence hung in the air.
Shocked, Wynter protested, “But I never…Ken never once—”
Mina laughed and held up her hand. “I know that now. But I didn’t know that then. I wanted to see if there was a situation brewing that I needed to take care of.”
“Is there a reason you’re telling me this story now?”
“Pearce is a lesbian, sweetie. You might be thinking of her just as a friend, but chances are she’s not thinking about you in the same way. If you went out on a Friday night with a single man, you’d at least be thinking about it being a date—or that he might consider it one, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, yes. Probably.” Wynter remembered the look in Pearce’s eyes the previous evening. She remembered how easily their bodies had fit together. How naturally. “What are you saying, Mina?”
“Pearce is probably thinking the same thing, or at least wondering. So sooner or later, you’re going to have to be clear with her.”
Wynter picked up a small glass prism and turned it between her fingers, studying it as if there were secrets hidden within the rainbows trapped inside. At length she looked up to find Mina watching her. “I almost kissed her once.”
Wynter had rarely seen Mina surprised by anything, but the expression on her face now was one of total incredulity. Finally Mina managed an intelligible word.
“When?”
“Match Day.”
“Almost four years ago?” Mina shouted.
Wynter nodded.
“And you’re just telling me about it now? If I thought I could catch you, I’d get up and thrash your butt.”
“You couldn’t catch me even when you’re not pregnant.”
“Don’t you try me.” Mina crossed her arms beneath her full breasts. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Wynter set the prism carefully back on her dresser. “It was all over in a few minutes. A few minutes that I couldn’t even explain myself. I just didn’t want to ruin them by trying to.” She lifted her hands and let them fall helplessly. “We met by accident, and it was as if there was a connection between us that had always been there. Being with her felt totally…right.”
“What about now?”
“It still does.”
The doorbell rang.
“That will be Pearce,” Wynter said.
“We’re not done with this,” Mina warned.
“I know,” Wynter said softly. She grabbed her full-length dark brown leather coat from the back of a nearby chair, hurried to Mina, and kissed her cheek. “Good night.”
“Have fun, sweetie.”
Wynter smiled gratefully. “Thanks.”
Once downstairs, Wynter rushed to the front door, gathering her keys and wallet from the sideboard in passing. She felt irrationally happy, excited, as if the evening held endless possibility. All she knew for certain was that she was going out with Pearce, and she was going to have fun. She was going to listen to Patti Smith rage, and feel her blood stir, and not think about a single thing that life demanded of her. She pulled open the door and instantly forgot everything she had just been so sure of.
Pearce wore black. Tight black jeans, heavy black motorcycle boots, a black T-shirt, and a black motorcycle jacket cut in at the waist and wide at the shoulders that accentuated her powerful build. Her thick black hair was slicked back, her high cheekbones knife-edged above an angular jaw. This was not the Pearce Rifkin she was used to. This woman exuded something exotic and dangerous and alluring.
“Hi,” Wynter said, feeling suddenly bereft of normal speech.
Pearce smiled. “Hi.” She reached out and fingered the blond strands that were trapped between the collar of the leather coat and Wynter’s throat. “Your hair looks nice down like this.”
“Thanks.” Wynter’s vision narrowed until all she saw was Pearce’s face. Then just her mouth, lips parted and intoxicatingly full.
Neither woman moved. The very tips of Pearce’s fingers rested against the pulse that beat erratically in Wynter’s neck. Wynter leaned ever so subtly into her caress.
Pearce traced her thumb along the edge of Wynter’s jaw and let her eyes drift downward, taking in the leather duster, the long legs sleekly encased in softer sheaths of leather, the hint of green silk calling to her like a cool mountain glade on a hot summer day. She’d barely slept the night before, the memory of Wynter in her arms tormenting her all night long.
Mina came up behind Wynter, her gaze traveling between them. “If you all don’t want those tickets, Ken and I will take them, and you two can stay here and babysit.”
“Not a chance,” Wynter said, her eyes never leaving Pearce’s face.
Pearce smiled and gently moved her hand away. She looked past Wynter. “Hi. How are you doing?”
“Other than the fact that I’m getting too big to get out of my own way, I’m just fine. Now, if you two could move along, I’ll close up over here and go find out what trouble my husband has gotten himself into with those children.”
“All set?” Pearce asked, unable to keep her eyes from Wynter’s face for long. Looking at her was the only thing that eased the ache that had set up permanent residence in the center of her chest.
Wynter put her hands in her pockets before she touched Pearce somewhere, anywhere. And she couldn’t. Not when there was so much she didn’t understand. She cared about Pearce too much for that. “Yes. I’m ready.”
“My car’s around the corner.”
Wynter followed Pearce down the stairs, Mina’s question resounding in her mind. Is this a date? Of course it wasn’t. Was it?
*
“There they are,” Wynter said, pointing into the crowd that milled around on the sidewalk in front of the Theater of the Living Arts on South Street.
Pearce looked where Wynter pointed and saw a woman who had to be Wynter’s sister Rose, since she looked like her carbon copy, only slightly shorter. Rose was glued to the front of a surprisingly scruffy guy in a black leather jacket that looked very much like Pearce’s. He had a diamond stud in his left ear and blue jeans that were torn out in the ass. Rose had her arms around his waist, both hands stuffed into his back pockets, and was squeezing said ass. “Tell me he’s a law student too.”
Wynter laughed. “He’s a drug counselor when he isn’t playing bass in a rock band.”
“Interesting combination.”
“Apparently it’s working for them. Come on,” Wynter said, grabbing Pearce’s hand. “Let me introduce you.”
If Rose was surprised by Pearce’s presence, she didn’t show it. She smiled and extracted one hand from her companion’s jeans and held it out. “Hi. I’m Rosie, and this is Wayne.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Pearce.”
“Good to see you,” Wayne said in a surprisingly mellow baritone.
Further conversation was curtailed as the doors opened and the crowd surged forward. Pearce and Wynter fell in behind Rose and Wayne in the haphazard line. Wynter held tightly to Pearce’s hand, and in a few minutes the crowd had poured itself into the theater, from which all the seats had been removed on the main level. It was standing room only in the dark, warm space. Staircases on either side led to a balcony area where a few tables stood along the railing, but most of the area on that level was filled with people standing as well.
“It’s really jammed,” Wynter shouted above the din.
“We’re going to go upstairs,” Rose said, struggling for balance when someone unintentionally bumped her hip in passing. “We’ll meet you after, if we don’t see you up there.”
“Okay.” Wynter looked at Pearce. “Upstairs or down?”
“Your call,” Pearce replied, automatically sliding her arm around Wynter’s waist and pulling her close as two men with plastic cups of beer sidled past them.
Pearce nodded as Rose and Wayne disappeared. “We’d better move fast.”
Plenty of people had the same idea, but luckily they found two open steps halfway up along the wall. Pearce claimed the upper one and Wynter wedged in on the one just below her, leaving barely enough room for people to pass next to them. They shed their jackets and stashed them against the wall by their feet. The security staff, men and women in black T-shirts and jeans who shouted into walkie-talkies as they pushed through the throng, looked the other way despite the fact that standing on the stairs was in violation of code. The entire theater was wall-to-wall people by the time the warm-up band bounded onto the stage.
Wynter, her back lightly cushioned against Pearce’s chest, tilted her head back against Pearce’s shoulder. “You okay?”
“Terrific.” Pearce steadied herself with a hand on either side of Wynter’s hips when another person crowded onto the stair just behind her. As soon as she regained her balance, she quickly moved her hands. “Sorry.”
“No need to be.” Wynter’s face was very close to Pearce’s. As the band started to play, she said, “I’m really glad you came tonight.”
“Me too,” Pearce shouted before all conversation became impossible.
Waitstaff, against all odds, managed to snake their way through the packed room holding aloft circular trays laden with bottles of beer. Pearce snagged two, tossing what she hoped was a ten onto the tray before passing a bottle to Wynter. Unlike most openers, the first band was better than good, and forty-five minutes later the crowd was primed for the main attraction. When Patti Smith hit the stage growling, lean and hungry in leather pants and a faded Dylan T-shirt, the room was seething with the contagious energy of sex and booze and rebellion.
Wynter rocked against Pearce as she clapped and stomped, her body hot against Pearce’s chest and stomach. The sounds were primal, the words prophetic, and Pearce was on fire. By the time Patti screamed that desire was the hunger, Wynter’s hips pressed and rolled between Pearce’s legs so hard that her mind filled with the red haze of arousal. She had no conscious awareness of sliding her arms around Wynter’s waist or of Wynter clasping her hands and tightening the embrace. When Patti proclaimed that the night was made for lovers, Pearce buried her face in the curve of Wynter’s neck and breathed her scent, her mouth open against sweat-dampened skin. Moaning softly, she surrendered to sensation, content to have just this small, sweet surcease. But it was Wynter who wanted more.
