A Palette for Love

by Charlotte Greene

  She used her free hand to turn my face back toward hers, making me meet her eyes before letting go. “I never lie about a woman’s looks, and I never flatter. You’re gorgeous just as you are. And I love you in that color.”

  I blushed again and then looked away, too embarrassed to respond. While she’d used the word love in relation to my bathrobe, it hung in the air. I turned my attention to the coffee and sipped at it while I stared out the window. We passed the next couple of minutes in, for me, an awkward silence. Amelia continued to read part of the paper, which, I noted, was the Arts section. It had a large spread on the auction later today. I glanced over at the clock and gasped. It was almost noon.

  “Jesus!” I jumped to my feet. “The auction’s in two hours.”

  “There’s no rush.” Amelia looked surprised. “It’s only a couple of blocks from here. Eat some breakfast and take your time.”

  “I can’t eat now. It’ll take me twenty minutes just to scrub off everything from last night.”

  Amelia frowned for a second and then agreed. “All right, get in the shower. You can use mine. I’ll pick an outfit for you.”

  Not seeing any reason to argue, I made my way into her bathroom, which was nearly twice as big as the one in my room. The shower had an adjustable temperature dial, and I put it up as hot as it would go, scrubbing at my face to remove the caked-on makeup. I’d brought a makeup remover into the shower and managed to get almost all of it off. When I stepped out of the shower, the mirrors were steamed up, and I opened the door without thinking about it to let some of the steam escape. Amelia was standing in the anteroom to the bathroom, and her eyes widened when she saw me standing there completely naked. Too surprised myself to do anything about it, I just stood there, letting her look.

  Her eyes roamed up and down my body, her pupils dilating with pleasure. When our eyes met, it took about half a second before we leapt at each other, our mouths meeting with crushing pressure. She shoved me against the bathroom door, my head smacking painfully against the wood. I ignored the pain and sighed with pleasure as her mouth made its way down my neck again. Her hands were already on my body, one on my left breast, the other on my ass, both of them gripping me. I gasped, and suddenly she was biting my nipple, hard. I yelped and she looked up at me.

  “Get on the bed. Now.”

  I made my way over to the bed and climbed back onto it. The sheets were still tangled from last night, and I kicked them out of the way as much as I could and rested against the pillows. Amelia was still standing where she’d been, her eyes blazing with desire. Slowly, still watching me, she unbuttoned her shirt and let it drop to the floor before slipping her skirt down and kicking it aside. Her lingerie was ivory and lace, gracing a body toned and sculpted to perfection. As she’d remained almost completely clothed during last night’s escapade, this was the most I’d seen of her. She was enviably thin but lightly muscular, with surprisingly long legs for her height. Her breasts, still covered in her bra, were significantly smaller than mine, but still proportioned to her frame.

  She stood there for a long moment, letting me gaze at her, and suddenly glanced around the room. Then she walked over to her dresser and pulled out a long silk scarf. Curious, I watched her turn back and approach me on the bed, a wicked grin on her face as she held up the scarf. Realizing what she wanted, I held my hands up above my head. She climbed onto the bed with me and then loosely bound my hands to the bed stand behind me.

  Leaning close to my ear, she whispered, “You can get out of your binding whenever you want if you try hard enough. But you won’t want to try.” She kissed my earlobe, and I shuddered. I was getting wet again, my legs spreading apart as if on cue.

  I swallowed, and then she was kissing me. Having my hands bound was infuriating but also wickedly hot, and desire crashed over me in rising waves of heat and desperation. She kissed my neck and breasts, lightly at first, then with a kind of hungry desire that seemed to match my own. My skin instantly heated in each place where her soft, sensuous lips touched me. Bound, I couldn’t pull her closer or do much of anything, but I coiled my legs tightly around her, drawing her as close as I could. The touch of her skin against mine intoxicated me.

  Evidently feeling my longing in the tense anxiety of my body, she looked up and met my eyes before sliding her hand down between my legs. She moved slowly, parting my lower lips with expert fingers and seemed somehow satisfied to find how wet and slick I already was. My back arched and I wrenched against my bindings. The feeling of my arms above my head was intoxicating, and I strained to move my legs farther apart.

  “What a naughty girl you are!” said Amelia, her face betraying her own desire. “I like it.”

  Her thumb found my clit as she bent down to suck my nipples. She circled my clit slowly, and I gasped with desire, straining against my bondage.

  “Oh, God, Amelia.”

  My head was muddled with desire, my skin inflamed, and I was growing wetter by the second. I let my head fall back and closed my eyes, luxuriating in the pleasure of the moment. I could sense her moving, and suddenly her mouth was no longer on my breasts but on my clit. I groaned with pleasure as her soft lips closed around it, her hot, wet tongue circling it just as her thumb had been a moment before. I arched against it, starting to feel the orgasm inside me building up, higher and higher, until I felt like a rubber band ready to snap with pleasure. Her tongue moved away from my clit, and I almost screamed with disappointment, but a moment later she started to lick deep into me, squeezing my ass. My pleasure began mounting yet again.

  “Yes, yes. Oh, Amelia. I want you inside me.”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  She sat up and plunged her fingers into me. The sound that came from my throat was an inhuman mewling, and I closed my eyes, rising to meet her fingers. As her fingers moved in and out of me, her lips closed over one of my nipples, rolling it around on her tongue before biting it, hard. I yelped but didn’t pull away, and she continued to suck on it, her lips and tongue gently kissing and licking me where she’d bitten. The combination of pain and the warmth of her slick tongue was pushing me near the edge again, and sensing this, I met her hand and fingers with rising speed. As if sensing that I was getting close again, Amelia withdrew her hand, and I groaned in frustration.

  She pulled her mouth away from my breast and looked up at me, appearing almost angry. “Not so fast. It’s better if you wait.” I must have seemed disbelieving, and she chuckled before turning to my other breast, once again nipping me with her teeth before licking and sucking at it.

  She alternated between my breasts, biting and licking, biting and licking, for seemingly hours. After an eternity of waiting and rising frustration, I was so close I began to think I might orgasm without her touching me again. She must have felt the tightening in my limbs, as she suddenly gave in, her fingers sliding inside me again. I screamed out my pleasure as the orgasm crashed over me. Throwing my head back, I felt it rock through my entire body in escalating waves of pleasure, the peak of my climax harder and higher than anything I’d ever experienced.

  When it was done, I lay gasping, my eyes still squeezed shut—spent and wrecked, sore in a delicious, aching way. I finally opened my eyes, and Amelia lay beside me, watching my face, her fingers skimming up and down my leg. She kissed my lips before undoing the scarf. My wrists were red and chafed, despite the silk, and I rubbed at them absently. Seeing the redness, she took my wrists in her hands and kissed them, sending another shiver up my spine. She laughed at my expression of pleasure.

  “Much as I would like to do this with you all day, Doctor, we really must get ready.” She slid over to the edge of the bed and stood up, stretching her long limbs before walking over to her clothes. I watched her dress again, and when she had zipped her skirt, she glanced back over at me. “Really, we have to go soon.”

  “But what about…”

  Her expression closed down for a moment, and then she smiled at me widely and, I think, somewhat falsel
y. “Later.” She disappeared into the bathroom.

  “You?” I finished my question in an empty room.

  *

  The auction was a success for the Winters Corporation because of Amelia’s ruthlessness and ability to outbid nearly everyone there. She lost out on two pieces she’d planned to buy but managed to acquire several others, including a piece not originally listed in the program. The whole process boggled my mind in terms of how much money was being bandied about, but I also enjoyed it. Sotheby’s was, of course, the best, and just to be in the room was something of an achievement. Though I was entirely superfluous to the whole affair, I made notes in my tablet about our new inventory. This was pointless, as the Sotheby’s people were clearly not in the habit of misplacing things that cost so much money, but I had to do something to look useful. Amelia had insisted that I accompany her for moral support, and I tried to enjoy it, worthy of the honor or not. We sat next to each other but were very careful not to touch there or on the walk between Sotheby’s and the hotel. Touching would, we both seemed to know, lead immediately to something else, and we had work to do. This, however, led to its own kind of quiet desperation, and I spent most of the auction trying to ignore the volcanic heat between my legs. My passion must have reflected on my face, as I saw Amelia give me a sly glance once or twice, making me blush at my own lasciviousness.

  We had a couple of hours between the auction and dinner for downtime, and we went to our separate rooms without discussing our reasons for keeping apart. It was obvious that if we wanted to leave at any time tonight, we had to stay apart for a while longer. Alone in my room, I debated calling Lana, but I felt suddenly strange talking about everything that had just happened. It all had the quality of a dream, and discussing it would, it seemed to me, sully it somehow. After all, I told myself, we were having brunch with her tomorrow, and I could tell her all about it in person. I made a quick call to my aunt and caught up on my e-mail before changing.

  As I slipped into the other gown I’d brought, I realized that Amelia’s suggestion about the choice of gowns yesterday had been correct. I cursed myself for my stubbornness. The gown I’d worn yesterday had been slightly less formal, more suitable to the reception tonight than yesterday’s fancy dinner. With this gown, I looked overdressed. I decided to take all future advice about clothing from Amelia.

  Standing there looking at myself, my hair and makeup as flawless and styled as I could make them on my own, I blushed at the memory of yesterday’s gown being ripped from my body in our desperate haste for heat and contact. Running my hands up my body, I could feel the tender spots under my gown where Amelia had nibbled, bitten, or sucked a little too hard. In the shower, I’d been surprised by several small and not-so-small bruises all over my body, and I could sense them now, under my gown. An all-consuming heat swept through me at the thought of our next encounter, and I shuddered with suppressed anticipation. I removed my hands from my body, too tempted to do something with them to relieve the growing pressure between my legs.

  When I walked into Amelia’s suite, she was standing by the window again, looking out as she talked on the phone. Her dress and hair were stunning from behind, emphasizing her slight curves like an intimate embrace. She laughed warmly at the person on the line, and I wondered idly who she was talking to before I realized it must be one of her brothers or her sister, as she referred to “Dad” several times. She hadn’t heard me enter the room, and when I slipped my arms around her from behind, she jumped slightly before resting back against me. I put my chin on her shoulder, gazing out at the city below us.

  “I have to go, honey,” she said on the phone. “I’ll see you next weekend at Dad’s thing, if not sooner.” She paused for a moment, and I could hear a feminine voice saying her farewells before they both hung up.

  “My sister Emma. She called to tell me that we were on TV last night.”

  “Oh?” I was genuinely surprised.

  “Just in the background. That starlet we met at our table was being interviewed right as our car drew up behind her. I didn’t even notice the cameras.”

  I kissed the side of her face and she turned, pulling me into her arms. She sank her face into my neck and kissed it, and I shivered all over. She laughed. “That was a mistake.” She stepped back and away from me. “Sorry, but we have to leave in ten minutes.”

  “We could always skip dinner,” I suggested, shrugging casually.

  “I don’t think so, young lady.” She shook a finger at me. “I haven’t seen you eat anything all day today.”

  I was surprised when I realized she was right. As if on cue, my stomach rumbled, and we both laughed. “That proves it. Dinner, reception, then bed.”

  I sighed, suddenly too hungry to disagree.

  *

  The River Café in Brooklyn is breathtaking, the food excellent. I wolfed down a huge meal, complete with several kinds of bread and a large salad, my hunger a gnawing desperation by the time the entrees were set in front of us. Amelia watched me with obvious amusement, eating in her usual elegantly casual way. She ate in the continental style, I was surprised to note, something I’d adopted for myself while in Paris. I’d gotten enough grief about the way Americans shovel their food and switch hands that I’d finally managed to train myself to eat with the fork in my left hand.

  Except for a few whispered sweet nothings, we sat through most of the dinner silently staring at each other, almost as if stunned. We held hands across our intimate little table, Amelia looking as dumbfounded as I felt. Something was happening here, I was beginning to realize, that had very little to do with sex. While I was still a bit shy of the idea of not only sleeping with a woman, but potentially dating one, I was already beginning to get used to it. It helped in this early stage that we were in New York, where two women holding hands didn’t raise eyebrows in most places, but the idea of taking all of this—whatever it was—back to New Orleans with us still terrified me. I hadn’t mentioned Amelia to my aunt on the phone except in reference to her idle questions about the trip and couldn’t imagine coming clean about having a relationship with her. I tried to push the thought from my mind. I would wholly enjoy myself for the time being.

  I suddenly remembered my ride down the elevator yesterday. I’d been dreading this dinner so much at the time that I’d been tempted to back out. Now here, alone with Amelia in one of the most beautiful spots in the city, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” she asked, running her thumbs along the back of my hand. The chafe marks on my wrists from the scarf had faded slightly, but she rubbed them gently. The waiter dropped off the check, efficient and unobtrusive. She had to take her hands away to retrieve her wallet, and mine immediately felt cold at the loss of contact.

  “Just thinking about how fast things change,” I replied. Amelia raised her eyebrows. “Yesterday morning, I was worried I might have to get a new job.”

  “And now?” she asked, taking my hands again.

  “And now? I can’t imagine it. I felt so terrible and now I’m so happy.”

  She smiled widely, eyes sparkling. “I’m happy too. I’m so glad things worked out.”

  I thought that was a coy way of putting it and laughed. Amelia winked. Glancing at her watch, she withdrew her hands again and signed the check, leaving a huge cash tip. We gathered our coats, and she called the car on her phone. The car was just down the block and arrived for us before we were even out the door. She reminded the driver of the address for the gallery, and we arrived a few minutes later.

  Tara Michaels was a rising star in the New York art scene and, from the minimal amount of gossip I’d heard on this trip, something of an airhead. Her space was much bigger than it would have been in Manhattan—a large warehouse with exposed pipes and wood, likely an old textile factory. Besides the space itself, I noticed a distinct shift from the makeup of the crowds we’d been bumping elbows with the last few days in Manhattan. Here in Brooklyn everyone was younger, affecting
poverty through expensive consignment clothes and, in the case of the men, unkempt beards. The room was a sea of flannel and skinny jeans, and my gown seemed even sillier than I’d already dreaded. I saw puzzled looks from everyone as we entered. I tried to quell my nervous anxiety by mimicking Amelia’s cool indifference as we glided toward a group clustered around the artist. We stood on the outside of the circle for a while, listening to her talk about her work.

  “I just think,” she was saying, “that a woman is always more in touch with her creations? Her work? You know, because of, like, babies? Art is from, like, our bodies. It’s primal, it’s biological. We know what it means to, like, make things, not just kill them?” Tara apparently had the annoying city-girl habit of making everything she said sound like a question. She was young—perhaps twenty-three. Her hair was a tangle of greasy locks perched on her head and held in place by two fast-food chopsticks, her face free of makeup. Her clothes looked threadbare and worn, and overall she looked unkempt in that careful, studied way of her crowd, which took, perhaps, just as much time as someone who bathed and combed her hair regularly.

  After a few minutes of listening to similar philosophizing, Amelia touched my elbow and we turned away. I met her eyes and could see the sparkle of humor in them. It was obvious that she, like I, was trying not to laugh. We walked around the large room, pausing at a few intriguing pieces and skipping some that looked derivative or too simple. I was especially appreciative of her sculptures, but Amelia seemed to be directing her interest at the paintings. We whispered about a few of them, trying to be as casual as possible, though we certainly couldn’t blend in. After half an hour, I saw Tara approaching us, looking desperate.

  “Are you from the Winters Corporation?” she asked when she was close to us. We nodded, and she sighed in relief. “I thought so. I’m so sorry about that earlier. I saw you come in, but I haven’t had a chance to get away.”