Behind the Green Curtain (12 page)

Unbalanced by the unexpected
honesty, Caton’s heart pounded an almost tribal rhythm against her chest. “You
think I would do this for the money?” she asked, any offense she felt
overshadowed by relief. If that was the reason Amelia never let Caton touch
her, it was nothing. Amelia wanting her touch was everything.

“I don't know,” Amelia tried and
failed to conjure some indignation. “Would you?”

Flicking her wrist in Amelia’s
hand, Caton broke free to press Amelia’s arm to the mattress beside her. “I
want to touch you,” she stated, vulnerability shivering down her spine, despite
the fact that Amelia couldn’t possibly know how much.

Releasing Amelia’s arm, grateful
when it stayed in place, Caton brushed her fingers against Amelia’s thigh,
relishing the soft canvas of Amelia’s skin, painfully aware that Amelia could
backpedal at any time. Almost expecting it. When Amelia offered no resistance,
Caton’s hand edged beneath the silk boundary bunched at her thighs, drawn by
the heat emanating from beneath. Skin meeting skin, she inhaled sharply at the
realization that Amelia wasn’t wearing anything beneath the nightgown.

The discovery drawing her eyes once
again over Amelia’s form, it occurred to her that Amelia looked awfully
flawless for someone who had feigned illness a short time before, and that she
hadn’t seemed all that surprised to see Caton walking through her bedroom door
instead of Sole. If Amelia really was planning to come find her, maybe Amelia
had an objective. Despite her feeble attempt at protest, maybe this was exactly
what Amelia was hoping for all along, and the possibility alone was enough to
cast off Caton’s lingering doubts.

Fingers sinking between inflamed
flesh, she watched Amelia’s eyes fall closed, captivated at the way Amelia’s
cheeks flushed redder, by the rapid movement of Amelia’s eyes beneath their
lids, by the pulsing of Amelia’s anxious, responsive skin against her fingers.
Irrefutable proof of Amelia’s desire coating her skin, Caton struggled to keep
her eyes open, not wanting to miss anything, knowing it might be the only time
she ever got to see Amelia so unguarded.

Finding the perfect rhythm, she
pulled Amelia’s hand to her breast, expelling pent-up air as Amelia squeezed
softly and opened her eyes. What Caton saw in them, swirling whirlpools of
unchecked emotion, was so real, she could hardly endure it. An instant later,
when Amelia’s hand abandoned her breast to slide upward, palm warming Caton’s
chest before moving onto her neck and brushing against her cheek, Caton
stilled, feeling the vortex yawning wide, threatening to suck her in. There was
more, she could feel it in Amelia’s touch, and, if this was the inevitable
progression, things were progressing far too slowly.

Withdrawing her hand from beneath
Amelia’s nightgown, Caton fisted the hem in both hands, not sure if she yanked
her upward or if Amelia surged from the bed to tug it over her head and toss it
carelessly aside.

It was far from elegant as she
twisted onto the bed, but when Amelia’s arms closed around her, their bodies
pressing together, warm and intimate, Caton didn’t care what it looked like.
Groaning, she slipped her hand between them, fingers sinking back into
position, surprised when Amelia opened up to her. Without hesitation, Caton
pressed inside, and, with a restrained moan, Amelia arched against her hand,
pulling her deeper.

Head falling to the pillow, Amelia
was utter perfection, and Caton was torn between the urge to never stop looking
at her and the craving for more. More, while Amelia was under her spell for
once. More, while Amelia would allow her to have it.

Lips fastening to Amelia’s neck,
Caton tongued tangy skin, nipping at flesh until Amelia moaned in pleasure or
pain. Downward, she dragged her teeth over Amelia’s bare skin, up the slope of
one breast to suck Amelia’s nipple into her mouth. The frantic breaths from
above and Amelia’s fingers tangling in her hair provided encouragement, and
Caton crossed to the other breast, fingers thrusting deeper as her thumb teased
against Amelia’s clit.

She wanted more time, but time
barely passed, or Caton lost all track of it, before Amelia’s body seized
against her, contracting around her fingers, a series of suppressed moans and
gasps pouring from full red lips. Wanting to prolong, as much for herself as
for Amelia, Caton slowed her movements to a crawl, and when Amelia’s
fingernails dug sharply into her back in response, she felt as if she was
wielding whatever power she had to its fullest potential.

When Amelia at last fell back
against the mattress, panting for air, Caton couldn’t stop. Where she could
have relented, withdrawn, she only pressed deeper, demanding response.
Convulsing slightly at the touch, Amelia opened her eyes. They held Caton’s for
a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, before drifting closed as
Amelia’s body tensed again, her open hands clutching Caton’s back. The softened
caress felt like affection. Or was affection.

It was always more than it seemed.

 When Amelia flinched at every
touch, Caton relented, running coated fingertips along the inside of Amelia’s
thigh. Amelia looked completely unraveled and unconcealed as her eyes opened,
and Caton wanted to fall into their depths and find bottom. The potent desire
luring her closer, she watched Amelia’s eyes go wide, the cluster of emotion in
them displaced by one unmistakable one. Panic.

Shoving Caton off with an
astonishing amount of force, Amelia swung her legs to the edge of the bed,
reaching blindly for the sheet and jerking it up against her body.

Stunned by the sudden change in the
atmosphere, Caton could only stare at the smooth curve of Amelia’s back,
realizing how little chance she’d had to admire Amelia in their haste to be
closer, and grudgingly acknowledging how fitting it was that her first memory
of Amelia naked would be of her cold shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Caton asked
carefully.

“I'm fine,” Amelia returned, and if
her actions hadn’t already done so, the shaking of her voice would have given
her away.

“You don't seem fine,” Caton
argued.

“Well, I am,” Amelia snapped.

Caton knew she should go, try to
minimize the damage. She could tell it wasn’t wanted, wouldn’t be accepted, but
the urge to reach out to Amelia was as instinctive as the urge to breathe. Her
fingers barely brushed Amelia’s back before Amelia flinched away as if her
touch was lethal.

Knowing no attempt would prove
effective, and that she was no longer wanted in Amelia’s bedroom, Caton chose
to cut her losses. It wasn’t the first time she had been sent away at Amelia’s
command before she was ready to go, and she doubted it would be the last.

Crawling out of the bed, she
retrieved her clothes from the floor, glancing up at Amelia as she redressed,
but Amelia refused to look at her. She didn’t speak. She didn’t move. She sat
as still and silent as a statue as Caton finished dressing and left her to the
silence.

Back down the stairs, Caton didn’t
stop, following the well-beaten path all the way back to the kitchen.

“How is she?” Sole asked as Caton
entered the room, heading directly for her bag and throwing it over her
shoulder.

“Contagious,” she responded on her
way back out the door. “I’m sick too.”

Chapter 21

Watching the last splash of Jack
Daniels hit the bottom of her glass, Caton absently wondered how many fifths
she would go through in her remaining time as Amelia’s assistant. She wasn’t a
total lush yet, but one glance at her recycle bin was proof alone that her
desire for mind-numbing drink had increased exponentially with the unwritten
functions of her job.

Further inspection would reveal the
liquors had gotten harder and the proofs higher. The way Caton figured it, she
was about three days away from opening the dusty, factory-sealed bottle of
Absinthe given to her as a joke on her twenty-first birthday with the assurance
it would “shred her insides” and joining several members of her extended family
in functional alcoholism.

Halfway through her first sip of
her second glass of the night, the knock on the door caught her off-guard, and
Caton glanced toward it with irritation. As more of the building’s residents
had come to recognize Laura, she had been getting in more frequently without
buzzing up, a habit that was becoming increasingly annoying as the rest of
Caton’s life spiraled further out of her control.

Capping the bottle, Caton added it
to the bin and dropped the lid that didn’t quite close, before walking to the
door and peering through the peephole, breath catching at the sight of the
woman on the other side of the door.

Head tilted down, Amelia’s eyes
were unreadable - not that Caton would expect to see anything legible in them
even if they were staring straight at her - so she could only imagine why
Amelia had shown up at her apartment without warning.

To fire her probably, properly to
her face. Amelia would surely want it no other way.

To scold her, perhaps, for leaving
without telling her, just because it was within her power to do so.

Then, maybe Amelia had just come to
heckle, to interrupt Caton’s routine on an even grander scale. Caton, and every
god she had silently praised every time Amelia was fucking her, and blasphemed
every time Amelia treated her like dirt, knew that was within Amelia’s power.

Unless she had trolled the parking
garage before somehow letting herself into the building, though, Amelia
couldn’t know she was inside, and Caton considered not opening the door. Twenty
minutes earlier, she could just as easily have been in the shower. Ten minutes
later, she could just as easily have not been home. If she couldn’t brood in
her own apartment without Amelia interrupting her, where could she be safe from
the other woman?

When Amelia finally looked up, she
looked neither vengeful nor mocking, but Caton had a hard time believing what
she did see. If she were to put a name to Amelia’s expression, she would call
it defeat. Through the peephole, she watched Amelia’s eyes trail over the
surface of the door and Amelia raise her hand once again to knock, before she
pulled it back against her chest and turned to go.

It was the sight of Amelia leaving
that spurred Caton to action, driving one hand to the deadbolt and the other to
the doorknob. Turning the locks simultaneously, she yanked the door open, and
her instantaneous relief upon discovering that the Amelia she saw through the
peephole wasn’t a hallucination turned to dread as Amelia looked back at her
and she realized she still didn’t know why Amelia was there.

Amelia looked so surprised to find
Caton standing there, she too seemed unaware of why she had come. Tempering the
expression, she turned around fully, and Caton dropped her gaze. The alcohol
fueling both her temper and her libido, she didn’t know if she wanted to bruise
Amelia or please her. Though, with them, the two seemed to overlap, or so
testified the unmistakable handprint Caton discovered on her chest after her
shower and had been trying to come up with a good explanation for ever since.

Eyes falling over faded jeans and a
leather jacket that looked like it was off the rack of a vintage store, Caton
deemed Amelia’s attire decidedly un-Amelia-like. Were rich people even allowed
to buy clothes sans designer tags? The question sounded fearless in her head,
and Caton was about to pose it defensively when Amelia suddenly eliminated the
space between them in a series of rapid steps, and abnormally gentle hands
grasped either side of Caton’s face, pulling her head up and killing her
sarcasm.

Amelia’s lips meeting her own,
Caton ceased to function. Mind going blank and knees giving out, her mouth
surrendered to Amelia as every other part of her had. Instincts returning as
Amelia’s tongue brushed against her bottom lip, Caton’s lips parted on moan,
hands clutching at the soft leather of Amelia’s jacket to keep her on her feet.

Amelia’s tongue coiled around
Caton’s like silk, or like a serpent, as she stepped flush against her, and
Caton felt herself moving, scarcely aware of the door clicking closed at
Amelia’s back. Somewhere on the edge of her mind, there was something Caton
needed to remember, some reason they shouldn’t be doing this, but Amelia’s
tongue drew back just enough to flick against the tip of Caton’s, and Caton
could find no objections.

Whatever else there was, whatever
else existed, the only thing that mattered were Amelia’s lips against hers,
quenching a longing so deep-seated, it was as if Caton had been born with it.

Hands sliding inside the barrier of
Amelia’s jacket, Caton pushed it from her shoulders, letting it drop to the
floor by the sofa as she pushed Amelia down on one flat, faded cushion. Kiss
broken, Caton feared it would break the spell. One look around, and she was
sure Amelia would realize she was on a hand-me-down couch in a rent-controlled
apartment. Surprisingly, though, Amelia’s gaze made no attempt to roam. Her
eyes stayed on Caton, wide, exposed and anticipating, as Caton slid into her
lap, legs straddling Amelia’s thighs, hands pressing her against the back of
the couch.

She was afraid to go further, she
realized, to try for what she wanted, for fear that Amelia would pull away
again, would change her mind at the last second and send her hurtling backward
into the secondhand coffee table. In the end, though, the fear was weak in the
face of her desire, and there was nothing else Caton could do but press
forward. All she had wanted for longer than she would ever admit was for Amelia
to kiss her, and all she wanted was to feel Amelia’s lips on hers again.

Lowering her head, Caton watched
for any indication Amelia was going to retract her offering, but when Amelia’s
hands fell to her hips, pulling her tighter against her and causing a pleasant
throbbing outward from Caton’s center, she closed her eyes and covered Amelia’s
lips with her own. Purring at the taste between them, she breathed Amelia’s
breath, lost in the feel of Amelia’s body beneath hers, for once not fighting
for dominance.

Hand on the back of the couch next
to Amelia’s head, Caton knew she shouldn’t pull away, that she should take what
she had been handed as it had been handed to her without question. The desire
to look at Amelia, though, to really look, was too compelling to resist, and
she pushed back just enough. Eyes moving over Amelia’s face, the fingertips of
Caton’s free hand ghosted along Amelia’s jaw, brushed against one
lightly-reddened cheek.

Fingertips moving across
kiss-reddened lips she longed to feel everywhere, Caton watched Amelia falter,
saw the tinge of doubt pass through her eyes, before a hand tickled up Caton’s
back and Amelia’s fingers slipped beneath her hair to pull Caton back down.
Bringing their lips together again, the slow, firm press pulled a sigh from
deep within Caton. Opening her lips, she felt Amelia’s part in response, and
their tongues rushed to tangle.

Amelia’s hands moving under her
shirt, trailing up overheated skin, brought immediate insistence to Caton’s
body. Rocking against her, Caton felt as if she would come apart, fully-clothed
and hardly-touched, just from the overwhelming sensation of Amelia’s lips
against hers.

Drumming, rhythmic and loud,
intruded upon the wordless chorus of their breathing, and Amelia pushed Caton
away, palm pressing unknowingly into the bruise she’d made earlier, ripping a
hiss from Caton’s throat. Staring down at Amelia, who looked more than a little
undone herself, Caton felt the sting of rejection she always seemed to suffer
at Amelia’s hands.

Then, the drumming came again, more
recognizable, and Caton’s eyes shot toward the door. “Shit,” she whispered.
Suddenly remembering why she shouldn’t be doing what she was doing with Amelia
at the moment, she made no move to get up, wondering if Laura would leave.

“Aren’t you going to get that?”
Amelia asked, and Caton looked down to see Amelia’s stare shuttering, every
visible emotion disappearing behind her usual veil of mystery. She knew then it
didn’t matter if she did or didn’t answer the door. Whatever Amelia had open
when she stepped into the apartment had just closed before her very eyes.

Sliding off Amelia, Caton felt the
cold rush in as she watched her sit upright on the couch, running her fingers
around the edges of her mouth to wipe away evidence they had ever kissed, and
could only imagine the image she had to present. Stopping at the mirror by the
door, she grimaced at lips too pink and skin too flushed, and switched off the
light in the entryway, hoping Laura wouldn’t notice the change from the other
side of the door.

Another knock falling right beside
her, Caton at last opened the barrier between them, and Laura’s hand pulled
back in surprise. “Hey,” she greeted, leaning forward to press a kiss against
Caton’s swollen lips.

“Hey,” Caton returned, dropping
Laura’s gaze and fighting the urge to glance back to see if Amelia had seen.

“I was starting to think you’d
stood me up,” Laura said, eyes trailing over Caton’s shoulder at the sound of
Amelia getting up from the couch. Smile fading slightly, Laura didn’t ask. Her
eyes returning to Caton’s, they silently demanded explanation.

“Sorry,” Caton mumbled, turning
around and gesturing toward Amelia, belatedly inspecting her hand for any signs
of what she’d just been doing with it. “This is Amelia, my boss.”

“Oh.” Laura smiled in obvious
relief, stepping over the threshold. “I’m Laura.”

Closing her eyes on what felt like
the traces of a lie, Caton pushed the door closed and turned to watch Laura
step around the sofa.

“Laura.” Amelia pronounced the name
like it was up for debate, inspecting her unabashedly, as if everyone was
subject to her appraisal. Her eyes returning to Laura’s, she made it clear
she’d made her assessment, but gave no indication as to what opinion she might
have formed.

Shifting uncomfortably, Laura
glanced to Caton for help, and Amelia turned her gaze on Caton too, her
expression revealing nothing. Not sure how exactly she had ended up in such a
decidedly unpleasant position, Caton rounded the sofa to step between them,
feeling a desperate compulsion to keep them apart a little too late.

“Laura works at a non-profit that
helps kids living on the street.” She attempted to mitigate any unfair
estimation Amelia had undoubtedly made on Laura’s character. “Amelia handles a
lot of Jack’s charity work.”

Glancing to Amelia’s jacket, draped
neatly over the arm of the couch, Caton was amazed at how innocent Amelia’s
visit appeared.

“Oh.” Laura smiled at Amelia.
“Cool.”

With a tight laugh that was nothing
short of belittling, Amelia smirked. “Indeed. It sounds like we have our hands
in a lot of the same things,” she declared, and Caton tried not to choke on
air.

“Laura, I'm sorry.” She rushed to
put an end to the conversation before it took any more unexpected turns. “I
didn’t know I would have to work tonight, but -”

“She doesn't,” Amelia cut off her
explanation, reaching for the jacket and pulling it on, and Caton felt her
chest constrict as her eyes met Amelia’s.

Trying to find a speck of what was
there before, she found only the gaping void of nothingness that most often
stared back at her. “I thought you needed me,” she said, the words coming out
amazingly calm amidst the tempest that kicked up inside of her.

“I don't,” Amelia declared with
callous conviction, and Caton dropped her gaze, wishing she had the same veiled
defenses as Amelia, certain Amelia had to have seen that the words stung. “Have
fun,” Amelia added on her way out.

Eyes locked on the floor, Caton
refused to see, refused to feel. At the sound of the door closing with a quiet
click, she left Laura standing in the middle of her living room and moved
toward the abandoned glass on the kitchen counter.

“Wow,” Laura casually exclaimed
once Amelia was gone. “She is gorgeous.”

“Is she?” Caton returned, picking
up the glass.

“Don’t pretend you haven’t
noticed,” Laura chided good-naturedly. “She is kind of a bitch, though,” she
added, almost as an afterthought.

“Yes, she is.” Caton couldn’t have
agreed more. Tipping back the last of the whiskey, she cast a futile look
toward the cabinet that housed deeper, darker spirits within.

She could hear Laura moving behind
her, drawing closer, and took a breath that failed to soothe. The anger was
unexpected and unfair, she knew that well, but she still tensed as Laura’s arms
slid around her waist.

“Come on,” Laura whispered. “Don’t
let her ruin your night. Please.”

Amelia wasn’t the one who ruined
her night, Caton thought bitterly. Or maybe she was. Maybe it was a blessing
that Laura showed up when she did, to save Caton from herself, to keep her from
digging a deeper grave from which she would never claw free. Regardless, none
of it was Laura’s fault. If there was one victim in the situation, it was the
person who had no clue what was going on.

Setting the glass on the counter,
Caton turned in Laura’s arms and looked into her tentatively smiling face,
realizing, with no small amount of guilt, that she didn’t deserve what was
standing in front of her. “She hasn’t,” she assured Laura, and tried to mean
it. “What do you want to do?”