Every Second Counts

by D. Jackson Leigh

  Ryder widened her stance a little. Eye-level with the short, dark curls, she breathed in the musky scent of Ryder’s arousal and looked up. Her eyes dark as chocolate and hungry, Ryder held out her hand and she took it as she stood.

  “My turn,” Ryder said. “You left a few things out.”

  Ryder held her gaze and worked her silk blouse open, button by button, then dropped it to the hardwood floor.

  “A woman’s skin is like satin.” Ryder touched her cheek with the backs of her fingers.

  Ryder released the front clasp of her bra and laid her cheek against Bridgette’s chest. “Her breasts like the finest silk pillows.”

  Sliding behind her, Ryder reached around to pop the button on her leg-hugging jeans and lowered the zipper. She could feel the hard points of Ryder’s nipples against her shoulders and the calluses of her hands as they slid under the material to push it down.

  “A woman’s body has curves like a mountain road, rather than sharp turns.”

  Ryder appeared to have no trouble bearing weight on her healing leg, but difficulty bending it, so she helped by toeing off her ankle-high boots and bending to wiggle out of her jeans. She had barely straightened when Ryder molded to her back and held her firmly.

  “But I don’t need to see to know male from female.”

  Her flesh tingled as Ryder nuzzled her neck and inhaled deeply. “A woman smells of lilacs,” she gasped when Ryder cupped her sex, then lifted her glistening fingers to her nose, “and musk.”

  Ryder’s mouth was on her neck now. “A woman tastes both sweet—”

  She held her breath and watched out of the corner of her eye as Ryder sucked on the fingers she’d just sniffed.

  Ryder groaned and she rubbed her hips against Bridgette’s ass. “—and salty.”

  The last words, a hoarse rasp, flooded her crotch and dripped down her thighs. Her legs shook with her need to come. She wheeled to grasp Ryder behind her neck and, when their mouths met in a frantic devouring feast, she realized Ryder’s need burned as hot and bright as hers.

  Ryder’s hands were on her buttocks, massaging and lifting her. She wrapped her legs around the trim waist and they both moaned as she rubbed her slick clit against Ryder’s belly. She tightened her legs without breaking their kiss, and Ryder carried her toward the only interior doorway in the open loft.

  The red silk sheets were a rumpled pool on the king-sized bed. She bounced slightly when Ryder dropped her onto the mattress, finally breaking their kiss. Ryder’s eyes bored into hers, dark and wild. Her chest was flushed, her nipples stiff as she climbed onto the bed and hovered over her.

  “Damn, you’re gorgeous,” Ryder said. “I hope you’ve got all night, because I’ve got a long list I want to check off with you.”

  “Good.” She was a bit out of breath. “I was afraid you were one of those one-and-done kind of women.”

  Ryder threw her head back and laughed. “Hardly. When I get done with you, beautiful, you’re gonna know what it means to be rode hard and put up wet.”

  Before she could answer, Ryder sucked her breast into her hot mouth. Her hips jerked and her thighs fell open as a hard nip sent a wave of pleasure all the way to her toes. Ryder took the opening and moved between her legs, holding her thighs apart with her weight.

  “I love a woman who likes it a little rough,” she said.

  She grabbed a fistful of Ryder’s dark hair and yanked her down for another forceful kiss. Their tongues battled. She opened her legs wider and dug her fingernails into Ryder’s ass. Ryder bucked, rubbing their clits together, and they growled into each other’s mouths as they began a furious hump. They were both so wet, so hot.

  The pressure gliding against her clit was too much, and she whimpered as her orgasm gathered in her belly. She broke their kiss and screamed at the ceiling as it swarmed through, convulsing her body. A second later, Ryder’s body went rigid and she joined her with a muffled groan.

  Her legs were still trembling from the aftershocks when Ryder slithered down and slipped her shoulders under her thighs. She sucked in her breath when Ryder opened her with her fingers and greedily bathed her with her tongue.

  God, she was good. The talented mouth probed and swirled and lapped and probed until she began to wonder if Ryder was a medical freak with two tongues, at least one of them unnaturally long. Her heart hadn’t slowed from her first climax when the second orgasm flashed through her.

  This time, when the spots before her eyes cleared, she was cradled against Ryder’s soft breast and warm hands stroked her back.

  “Wow.”

  “You okay? I think you may have left me for a minute.”

  “Wow.” She wasn’t sure, but she thought maybe she did black out for a second or two.

  Ryder chuckled. “We must have killed some brain cells. I know you definitely short-circuited mine, and you seem to be reduced to a one-word vocabulary.”

  She rubbed her cheek against Ryder’s still-hard nipple. She was surprised that she felt energized rather than depleted.

  “Still want to see my studio?”

  “Do we have to get dressed?”

  “Not unless you’re cold-natured or modest.”

  “What do you think?”

  Bridgette kissed her, tasting herself on Ryder’s lips before pushing inside to languidly roll their tongues together, then ending it with one last brush of their lips. She studied Ryder’s oval-shaped face and strong jaw. She hadn’t noticed before how long and thick her dark lashes were.

  “I think you’re hot-blooded and completely without modesty,” she said. “Why haven’t I met you before now?”

  “Karma? Fate? Just plain bad luck?”

  “You didn’t just get out of prison, did you?”

  Ryder laughed. “No. I’ve never even spent a night in jail.” She looked thoughtful. “No, wait. That’s not true. There was that one night in Texas. But that wasn’t my fault. The woman didn’t tell me she was married and that her husband’s father was the county sheriff.”

  She shook her head and climbed out of the bed. “Should I get your cane?”

  “Nah. I don’t use the cane or the brace anymore around the house, unless I have to tackle steps.”

  However, she didn’t miss the care Ryder took to stand gradually and the effort to hide her limp as they walked through the loft to her studio space behind the massive stone fireplace.

  The room was filled with half-finished canvases, some sitting on easels and others stacked in the corner. Sketches were pinned to the wall around a tilted art table littered with more drawings. The fore part of a horse was emerging from a large block of clay on small, elevated table in the center of the room.

  Bridgette was suddenly uncomfortable, watching Ryder carefully examine each painting. She glanced at her several times as she rounded the room. Did she notice that nothing was finished? Ryder touched the clay sculpture, then looked up, seeming puzzled.

  “Your clay is dry. You don’t intend to finish this?” Ryder looked at the sketches laid out on the floor around the sculpture. “The sketches are great.”

  Bridgette shrugged. “I got sidetracked onto another project and sort of lost interest in that. I’ve been meaning to throw it out.”

  Ryder frowned, her brow furrowed, but didn’t reply as she continued around the room. She seemed to know more than the average person about art.

  “You haven’t really told me what you do for a living. All you said was it involved sports. Are you a sports photographer or artist? You seem to have a good eye for it.”

  “No. I just enjoy art.” She walked over to the sketching desk and picked up a copy of Sure and the Groundhog. “Doing a little light reading?”

  She smiled. “A little light drawing. That’s the third in a series of children’s books that I illustrate for a writer friend. I enjoy doing it, and I’ve been surprised at how much money you can make from successful children’s literature.”

  Ryder thumbed through the pages. “This is reall
y cute. You like kids?”

  “I do, but don’t plan to have any. I enjoy my cousin’s children, and I have some friends about to have their first baby. They own an equestrian training center just outside town.”

  “You like horses?”

  “They’re beautiful animals. I’ve been thinking about taking a few riding lessons to see if I like it.”

  Ryder nodded and turned to a large, unopened crate in the far corner of the room.

  “What’s in this?”

  She frowned. It hadn’t bothered her at all that they were prowling her studio in the nude, but seeing Ryder examine the crate made her feel suddenly exposed.

  “Are you thirsty? I am.” She walked quickly back to the main part of the loft and pulled two bottles of water from the refrigerator. She downed half a bottle, then grabbed a corkscrew and a black-raspberry merlot from her wine rack.

  Ryder limped around the fireplace, waving a sketchpad. “You weren’t going to show me this, were you?”

  “Drink this.” She thrust the second bottle of water at Ryder, then took the pad and laid it on the counter. She uncorked the wine and poured two glasses.

  Ryder emptied her bottle of water in one long drink and picked up the sketchpad again and the wine she offered, sipping as she paged through slowly. The figures were faceless outlines, but all female, either erotically or romantically entwined. She gulped down her wine and refilled the glass as she watched Ryder’s face.

  “This is definitely not for a children’s book,” Ryder murmured, her gaze fixed on a sketch of two women. The reclining figure’s head was thrown back, wavy tresses draped over her shoulders, while the other figure, barely more than an outline, kneeled with her hand between the first figure’s legs.

  Ryder flipped to the next drawing and licked her lips. “Shit.”

  Was it the picture or the wine that was flushing Ryder’s chest and cheeks? It pleased her that her drawings aroused Ryder. She moved to rub her breasts against Ryder’s bare back and whisper in her ear. “That’s one of my favorites.”

  Ryder gulped down the rest of her wine, then returned her gaze to the sketch. The long-haired figure was kneeling, adjusting the straps of a dildo harness around the hips of a standing figure.

  “Why don’t they have faces?”

  She brushed her fingers down Ryder’s ribs, scraping her nails across the ridges that twitched under her touch.

  “I dream about them, but I can never see their faces. Still, they inspire me.” She moved her hand downward to comb her fingers through Ryder’s stiff curls. She was wet. “Apparently, I’m not the only one feeling inspired.”

  She released Ryder and emptied the last of the wine into their glasses. Then she took her glass and sauntered back to the bedroom, leaving Ryder to follow.

  She barely had time to put her glass down and sit on the bed when Ryder was standing before her. “In the drawer,” she said, indicating the nightstand.

  Ryder stepped into the dark leather harness and efficiently tightened it around her slim hips. Her gaze was a keen razor as she silently handed over a small bottle. She spread the lubricant along the flesh-colored dildo, pleased when Ryder’s hips jerked as she pumped it several times. She lay back across the bed and opened her legs.

  Ryder’s body was hot as she covered her, the cock slick between their bellies. Their kiss was slow and deep and thorough. She hummed at the feel of Ryder’s mouth sucking her throbbing pulse, then moaned as Ryder’s callused hand massaged her breast while her teeth found the nipple of her other.

  Sharp pleasure pulsed from her breasts to her clit. She opened wider and pulled her knees up. She was ready. She was dripping. She needed Ryder to fill her, to take her.

  Ryder’s warm hand left her breast, and the head of the dildo pressed against her entrance.

  “Yes,” she hissed. “Please, yes.”

  She pressed her heels against Ryder’s ass. She was so open, so slick, that she took the thick cock easily. They both groaned. Ryder kissed her again then rose to rest her weight on her elbows and her good knee. She stared down at her, her eyes bright as she began a slow pump of her hips.

  Good. It felt so good. She closed her eyes as Ryder gave two short pumps, scraping the cock’s head against the spot that sent waves of pleasure down her legs and into her belly. The next stroke pushed deep to fill her completely. A swirl of her hips brushed the leather harness against her swollen clit.

  “Sweet mother. You’re good with that.”

  Ryder slipped her forearms under her back to pull her closer and tease her breast with her tongue as she thrust, settling into a steady pace that lifted her to the breath-stealing, toe-curling edge of ecstasy and held her there.

  “I should be,” Ryder mumbled against the nipple in her mouth. “I’m a professional rider.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Sure, I know a few artists who may be willing to donate something to your auction. E-mail me the details and I’ll make a few phone calls.”

  “Thanks, Lydia. You’re a lifesaver. I’m not sure how I got roped into this.” Bridgette cradled the phone against her ear with her shoulder so her hands were free to mix the paints she had squirted onto a fresh palette.

  “Do you want me to send something of yours back for the auction?”

  “I was thinking I might paint something new, but what do you have left?”

  The long, uncomfortable silence was followed by a deep sigh. “All of it.”

  She laid her mixing brush down and climbed onto the tall swivel chair at her sketching table. “You haven’t sold one thing?”

  “I’d have sent a check if I had. You know that.”

  She did know it. But she had chosen not to think about the absence of a check from Lydia’s galleries or a call begging her to send more of her work. She frowned and rubbed at her forehead as if she could massage that nagging reality back behind the door she kept tightly closed.

  “You need to get out of that place, Bridge. You haven’t painted a single thing I can sell since you moved there.”

  “I’ve found peace here, Lydia.”

  “You’ve lost passion. It shows in your art. That’s why I can’t sell it. Pretty pictures only sell at street fairs. My patrons know the difference.”

  Her laugh was bitter. “Ouch. Tell me what you really think.”

  “Send me the crate in your studio. You haven’t even opened it, have you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “It’s your best work and you know it.”

  Silence.

  Lydia’s voice softened. “Stephan wouldn’t want this. He wouldn’t want you to hide and bottle up your talent. He loved you too much.”

  “Stephan only loved himself and the next thrill he could find.”

  “You know that’s not fair.”

  She closed her eyes against the pain that threatened to split her chest. She wouldn’t cry. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t open that crate and I can’t sell what’s in it either. It still hurts too much.”

  “Oh, honey. Come up for a visit. We’ll go out, see a show, do something fun.”

  She took a deep breath. “Okay. Maybe I will. But not until after the auction. I won’t have time before then.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that. In the meantime, find something hot to fuck. That is, if they have any hot bootie down there in the boonies.”

  “Oh, trust me, we don’t have a shortage of hot women here. Maybe you should come down for the auction and see for yourself.”

  “Maybe I will, darling. I’ll be in touch. Ciao.”

  “Bye, Lydia.”

  She ended the call, surprised that a tingling in her belly had replaced the pain in her chest. New York lesbians had nothing on the local talent in Cherokee Falls. It had been two days and she still was a tad sore from the all-night marathon of screaming orgasms with Ryder. Two days since she’d awakened to find a note tented on the pillow next to hers.

  Early morning physical therapy appointment. You
were so beautiful and sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake you. You are amazing. See you in art class. Ryder

  She wasn’t sure Ryder would really show up because she hadn’t even told her when and where. But spending that one night with Ryder had her mixing paint for the first time in months. She picked up her palette and stood in front of the blank, white canvas. The images flashing through her mind definitely would have to be sold in New York, not locally. She turned the canvas to a horizontal position and began to paint.

  Several hours later, the outline of two women on a bed was taking shape, bathed in the warm, muted light of a bedside lamp, their legs entwined. One figure lay with her back arched and breasts offered up to the second, who was propped on one elbow as she hovered over the reclining woman. Her mouth was on the first woman’s breast, her hand delving between her lover’s legs.

  She painted quickly. It was good. She knew it was good because of the dampness of her panties. The scene was crystal clear in her head and flowing freely onto the canvas. She paused her work on the figures to fill in the satin sheets that draped the bed.

  After she squeezed small amounts of blue, green, and burnt umber on a clean corner of her palette, she frowned. She must have used up her tube of cadmium red. She put her brush down and retrieved a fresh one from her supply cabinet. Her gaze returned to the figures as she squirted out a generous amount from the fresh tube, the thoughts jumping forward to the flesh colors she would mix next. She closed her eyes and became the figure lying on her back with Ryder hovering over her—tanned face, flushed chest, and dark nipples.

  First, the sheets.

  She looked down to mix the colors and her heart stuttered.

  Red, crimson red. She was suddenly on that balcony in Pamplona, Spain.

  Men in white clothing are wearing vivid red sashes tied around their waists. Running. The street is filled with running men. Onlookers are hanging out of open windows and cheering from balconies that look down on the narrow avenue. The din rises as dark, hulking shapes gallop after the scrambling runners. The bulls swing their massive horns, goring each other and the men they overtake. Bodies are tossed like rag dolls into the air while others are trampled underfoot. Screams join the crowd’s frenzied cheering as runners scale barriers, gutters, anything to escape the carnage. Blood, fresh and bright, is everywhere as the seething mass of bulls and men moves to the next block.