“After all that, I need to cool off,” Dez said as they left the store. Victoria nodded. They bought ice cream from a nearby Ben and Jerry’s and walked back to the house, this time taking the long way up the sand dunes that dumped them out on the beach in front of the house. Lost in their separate thoughts, the women walked silently under the afternoon sun, eating their ice cream.
Derrick is going to kill me,
Dez thought as she looked over at Victoria. In the store, she had wandered from shelf to shelf, her imagination on fire with thoughts of using everything—oils, whips, dildos—with Victoria. While her hand hovered above a mocha and chocolate swirl silicone toy, in her very vivid imagination she felt herself slide into Victoria, felt the arch of the other woman’s back under her belly.
Trace had been called away to help more customers, so Dez left Victoria’s side to keep from propositioning, or worse yet, begging her. She turned around to see Victoria only a few steps behind her, tapping her finger against her mouth as if considering one of the toys. Immediately Dez wanted that finger inside her pussy, that mouth on her clit.
Taking Victoria with her to Sarasota wasn’t the best idea she ever had. Still, the pain of wanting her was sweet. Sweeter than any sexual satisfaction Dez had experienced in a long time. When that thought seared through her mind, Dez knew that she was in trouble.
Next to her, Victoria was having troubles of her own with the giant waffle cone of cookies and cream and strawberry ice cream she’d bought. She bit at the oversize mounds of ice cream, but still they melted, dripping red and white and dark streaks down her fingers.
“Need help with that?”
“I think I just might.” Victoria licked at the bottom of the cone, trying to catch the cream before it dripped down to her wrist. She didn’t have much luck.
Dez wasn’t much of a cone person. She had her Cherry Garcia and White Russian mix in a modest-sized bowl and was already half-finished. “Come over here.”
She bent her head under Victoria’s cone. “Try not to poke my eye out, I’m doing you a favor here.” With smooth, steady strokes, she licked the bottom of Victoria’s cone until it was as clean as when she first got it—if a little bit soggy. Then she started on her ice-cream-painted hands. She moved her head as she licked in long, rhythmic circles down and between the soft fingers. She licked until the fingers were clean and wet from her tongue, until her clit was fat and thrumming in her pants. The ice-cream cone almost fell from Victoria’s hands.
By the time Dez was done, Victoria’s back was to the empty lifeguard’s tower and they were both breathing heavily.
“Let’s get going.” Dez’s voice was rough. What she really wanted to do was lead Victoria back to the cottage and sink between her thighs. Since that absolutely was not going to happen, Dez needed to walk it off.
She spent the rest of the afternoon on the porch, stretched out on the hammock, watching the waves crawl up on the sand. Victoria came out and joined her, but she respected Dez’s need for silence and space, and sat a reasonable distance away on the lawn chair with a book and a glass of lemonade.
Then she spoke. “It’s okay not to get what you want right away.”
Dez stirred from her contemplation of the backs of her eyelids. “Will I eventually get what I want?”
“Maybe.”
She closed her eyes again and settled deeper into the hammock. Victoria went back to reading her book. When night fell, they retreated into the warmth of the house. Dez started a fire in the hearth and lay down on the rug a few feet away from the flames. Nearby, Victoria sat in an overstuffed chair and continued to read. That was how morning found them, softly snoring in the early dawn light next to a fire that had long since burned down to nothing.
“So what was yesterday about?” Victoria murmured from beneath her blanket in the chair. Her serious brown eyes blinked down at Dez from behind a curtain of curls.
“Sulking.” The cushion Dez rested her head on exhaled the artificial scent of green apples as she stretched. “Don’t you know me by now?”
“No, but I wish I did.”
“Good. I don’t want to ruin the mystery just yet.” She rolled over to stare briefly out of the window. “I am sorry, though. Sometimes I’m like a little kid with none of the cute-ness.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘none’ exactly.” Victoria wrinkled her nose and poked Dez lightly with her toe.
Dez yelped and scooted a few inches away. The other woman giggled. As she turned her head against the back of the chair, something caught her eye.
“Hey, is that you in the picture?” She gestured toward a large photograph suspended from the ceiling and hanging in front of the window. Its frame was stained glass, a rich and vibrant blue shot with golden stars and a sliver of a moon. It glowed in the early-morning sunlight.
“Yeah, I’m the little one.” Victoria shot her a “no kidding” look. “The lady next to me is my Aunt Paulette.”
“She’s gorgeous.”
“Yeah, she was.” Dez turned her head to look at the photograph. Aunt Paul had hung it there at her request almost sixteen years ago. Never mind that at certain times of the day it was hard to see exactly what was in that pretty frame. “For a long time she was my favorite person in the whole world.”
“It looked like she felt the same way about you.”
Dez laughed. “She spoiled me.”
“The first of a long list of women to do that, I bet.”
“Hardly.” She paused. “When my parents divorced she took pity on me. She noticed that I was a wreck and, essentially, took care of me and helped me to realize that the divorce wasn’t my fault. I was very grateful.” She shook her head as if to wake herself from a dream. “Not that Mom wasn’t there for me, but I was a handful back then and Aunt Paul was the only one who could handle my fits. She treated me like an equal, but never let me run over her. I learned all about women from her, how to love them, how to charm them.” The suede pillow with its scent of factory fresh apples briefly comforted Dez as she pressed her face into it and swallowed past a lump in her throat. “She died when I was twenty.” Her voice thickened. “For better or worse, she’s the reason why I’m able to live the way I do. Money hasn’t been a problem for me for a long time. Even now she’s spoiling me.”
Dez lifted her head once more to look at the photograph. In it, the eight-year-old Dez was happy, leaning into her aunt’s chest with a cheeky grin. Paulette, at a robust and gorgeous twenty-nine, straddled her motorcycle, one hand at rest on the handlebar, the other on her niece’s shoulder.
Victoria’s toe touched her again. More gently this time. “How about I make us breakfast today?”
“Fine by me,” Dez said, breathing through the resurrected ache of her aunt’s loss. “I’m ready to be your kept woman.”
Victoria smiled but made no move to get to the kitchen. If anything, she snuggled more deeply beneath her blanket. Her eyes, thoughtful and gentle, watched Dez.
“When’s that breakfast going to come?” Dez’s tone held a distinctly childlike whine. The subject of Aunt Paul and her leaving was finished; now it was time for food.
“When do you want it?”
“Now?”
“How about later? Come on the porch with me.”
“I have to warn you, I get grouchy when I haven’t eaten.”
“I’ll take my chances.” Victoria tugged Dez to her feet and out to the porch. “I like you. But I love your brother. This is going to be hard.”
Victoria stretched into the mild chill of the Sunday morning. Her sweet sleep scent enfolded Dez as Victoria stepped closer, linking their fingers. Sunlight fanned across the sky, filtering through her hair and across the seawater stretched out before them, bright like the flicker of a million fireflies.
“You’re like that ocean out there, Desiree Nichols. So amazing and beautiful that it hurts my eyes.” Victoria pressed her cheek into her shoulder. “I don’t want you to hurt my heart, too.”
Dez didn’t know what to say. Part of her wanted to blame Derrick. After all, what kind of shit did her brother tell Victoria that the woman was so convinced that Dez was about to rip her heart out and piss in the gaping hole? But the other part of her knew how easily she could take everything Victoria had to offer, then leave her with nothing but sticky sheets to remember her by.
Dez loved sex. She loved the power. She loved the noises. She loved the sweat. And that was all her relationships had truly given her in the past, even the one with Ruben, although in the beginning she’d sworn that it was more. That’s all she’d ever wanted from most of her partners. But Victoria needed more than that.
Victoria released her and turned to go back inside. She followed silently behind, thrown off balance by a woman for the first time in her life.
Did she really want to pursue this?
Victoria tackled breakfast while Dez went to take a shower. When she walked back into the kitchen, their food was laid out on the breakfast island, with two stools sitting side by side.
“Eat up.” Victoria licked her finger and snapped the lid shut on a container of cream cheese. “You’re going to need your strength today.”
Dez perked up at the promise in Victoria’s smile. “You don’t need to tell me twice.”
They left the house to see the rest of Sarasota. Dez played tour guide, showing Victoria all the museums and stores and little neighborhoods she thought were interesting. In the small downtown retail district, Victoria’s jaw dropped at the size of Mansell’s, the Main Street bookstore. Dez didn’t bother telling her that this was the best place in town to girl watch. The college girls came here. Though young, they all looked delectable in their lowrider jeans and tight little shirts. Mansell’s also had a mammoth selection of coffees, teas, and pastries.
“I am
so
jealous. This place is huge.”
“Go ahead and explore. I’ll be in the coffee shop.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Go.” Dez watched her disappear up the wooden staircase to the bookstore’s crammed loft space, noticing that she wasn’t the only one checking out the view. Dez threw the boy behind the cash register an irritated glance, then turned away, laughing at herself.
It’s too soon to act like that territory is yours, Dez.
She wandered into the coffee shop to browse among their magazine and postcard selections. As she spun the white wire rack, a card with a full-color scene of a lavender field in Provence caught her attention. Her mother loved lavender. When the twins were twelve years old, she and Aunt Paul took them to France to play in the vast fields of purple-blue flowers and hunt truffles with funny little grunting pigs. The water of the Mediterranean had been so bright.
Dez found a quiet corner and called her mother. “Hey, Mama. How are you feeling?”
“No complaints.” Claudia’s voice sounded strong. “Your father isn’t here yet but Derrick invited me out to lunch. We’re just now leaving my house.” Dez could hear the faint purr of a car’s engine in the background.
“Sounds good. Who’s driving?”
“Your brother. He bought himself one of those little sports cars like mine. It’s very cute.” Derrick said something that made their mother laugh. “Oh, sorry, darling. It’s actually nothing like mine. According to your brother, it is the Lexus SC hardtop convertible, the sexiest machine ever made. Personally, I don’t think it’s anywhere near as hot as my vibrator.”
Dez chuckled, glad that her mother was in good spirits despite Warrick’s impending visit.
“You should come see it—the car, not my vibrator.”
“I will as soon as I get back into town.”
“Where are you? Somewhere interesting, I hope.”
“Aunt Paul’s house in Sarasota.”
“Isn’t it a little cold for the beach?”
“It’s a
lot
cold for the beach. But I’m not going swimming anytime soon.” Dez crossed her booted foot over her knee and leaned back in the chair. “Just enjoying the sun and showing a new friend around.”
“A new friend? Is it serious?”
Dez laughed. “How come I called to talk about you and we end up talking about me?”
“Because you brought it up?” Claudia answered Dez’s laugh with one of her own. “So, is it serious?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. It’s fun, though.”
“As long as she knows that it’s only fun.”
“We’ve already had that talk, Mama.”
She heard Derrick say something in the background, but Claudia shushed him. “Just be careful, darling.”
“I will.”
“I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Dez breathed a quiet sigh as she hung up. Claudia was doing much better than the last time they talked, but that would no doubt change once she saw Warrick. And there wasn’t a damn thing Dez could do about it. She plucked a magazine from a nearby shelf and sat back to wait for Victoria.
Two hours later, she looked up from the magazine in her lap when Victoria sat down next to her, struggling into the seat with an armload of books.