Page 16 of Make Her Mine

Nora was elated, exhausted, and utterly conflicted by equal turns. She hadn’t been able to go more than a couple of days at a time without seeing Esme again, but the late nights and scrambled sleep schedules were already starting to take their toll. Laurie was mystified by the number of rearrangements Nora was having her make to her daily schedule, all the late morning starts and early evening departures. She was a good enough assistant to not push Nora on why all the changes were happening, but Nora could feel her confusion every time.

The Fairchild wasn’t Nora’s only major deal in the works, of course, but it was the only one she’d ever gotten so close to the end of and began to balk on. She knew it was puzzling everyone, from Laurie and her own legal team to the Fairchilds and their legal team. But Nora simply didn’t know what to do. This was something she’d never encountered before in her career.

She certainly couldn’t discuss it with Esme. It weighed heavy between them every time they met, but by some silent mutual agreement, they weren’t talking about it even though it was always the elephant in the room. When they were together, all Nora wanted was to touch and taste Esme, to keep chasing that euphoric high, feel the energy that crackled between them. Talking about the building acquisition and the fate of the Indigo Lounge would ruin it, and neither of them seemed inclined to go there.

Yet.

It was going to have to happen eventually. Neither she nor Esme were naïve enough to believe it wouldn’t. For now, though, Nora dealt with her pent-up confusion and worry by poking at angry little bears like Alexandra Fairchild.

And by visiting the gym a lot more. Nora was relieved that once she and Esme had given in to the sexual tension between them, she no longer risked embarrassing herself staring at pretty women working out. So when she wasn’t irking heiresses and confusing her assistant, Nora was on the elliptical, running like it could solve all her problems.

She checked her phone clock. 4:30 PM. A little earlier than she usually went home, but tonight was an Esme night. She could go take in a high-intensity fitness class of some kind, grab dinner, and get in a good nap before she headed for the Indigo Lounge. Eagerness put a spring in her step as she got up and grabbed her purse and blazer from the coat hooks on the wall.

Laurie looked up in surprise as Nora passed her, but Nora just tossed a cheery, “See you tomorrow!” over her shoulder as she hustled herself onto the elevator and hit the button for the ground floor.

Nora knew this couldn’t go on, but God, she hadn’t been so happy in such a long, long time.

The last two weeks had made Esme happier than she had been in years, but God, she hadn’t seen these levels of stress since she was first opening up the Indigo Lounge.

Hell, possibly since she was a teenager exploring her newfound sexuality and trying desperately to hide it from her stern, conservative parents. Leaning on the rail of the mezzanine overlooking the dance floor, Esme stared downwards, where a parade of drag performers twinkled under the shifting rainbow lights, and saw nothing. She stuck her thumb up to her mouth and began to nibble at the skin by the nail.

Almost immediately, a hand clad in a striped fingerless mitt swatted at her. “Fingers aren’t food,” Ruby admonished, taking Esme’s hand in both of hers.

Esme sighed. “I know. I know.”

“It’s been forever since I’ve seen you do that.” Ruby leaned on the railing as well, still holding Esme’s hand. “Is everything okay?”

“As it can be.” Esme had never been a good liar, but she could manage fudging the truth from time to time. “You know, it’s all, a lot.”

That was entirely truthful. If Ruby took her to mean that she was only referring to the impending potential eviction of the Lounge, well, so be it. And if she didn’t follow up with clarifying questions, that was hardly Esme’s fault. Esme held her breath waiting to see what direction Ruby would take the conversation in.

To her relief, Ruby elected to take the distraction route. “Did Sasha tell you about the vegan chocolate cake and vanilla bean ice cream sundae she’s been working on? It’s almost perfect. Soooooo divine, too. Each test she lets me try is better than the last.”

Esme smiled as Ruby chattered on. She wondered if Ruby would ever catch on to the fact that Sasha was head over heels for her. Had been since the day Ruby first crept through the door of the Indigo Lounge, hands wrapped around the strap of her enamel-pin festooned messenger bag, looking for somewhere to write her steamy sapphic romance novels. That was five years ago, and ever since, Ruby had been an enthusiastic taste testing focus group of one, never knowing how much of her heart and soul Sasha was putting into each dish. The entirety of the Lounge’s menu for the last five years was actually a love letter to Ruby that Sasha was too shy to read aloud in plain English.

“…anyway, I was just on my way home. It’s time to feed Winston and take him for walkies.” Winston was Ruby’s elderly Scottie dog, upon whom she doted. When she made her occasional family trips, Winston stayed with Sasha, who was allergic to dogs but, Esme knew, secretly took Claritin when she tended to him. Another little love letter to Ruby. Esme smiled wistfully as Ruby gave her a sweet smacking kiss on the cheek—she’d have to wipe off the ruby-red lip print later—and bounded off.

What might it be like to have someone love her the way Sasha loved Ruby? Instead of the torrid, clandestine affair she’d embarked on with Nora? Esme tucked her thumbs into her fists and considered it. Sasha’s love was quiet yet immense, steadily enduring.

This thing Esme had with Nora was a burning fire, confusing, intense, worrisome, addictive. Esme had known many types of love in her life, from the protective maternal affection of the lesbian couple who took her in after her parents had thrown her out, to the familial bonds she’d established with her friends and regulars. She loved her daughter desperately and missed her badly. And in her fifty years, she’d felt romantic love towards a number of beautiful women, none of which had lasted but all of which had ended amicably, because Esme did not believe in bitter endings.

And yet how could her affair with Nora end any way but bitterly? No matter how they talked about their personal lives and hobbies—Esme now knew that Nora was from the Valley, that they’d both started out middle-class and had had to claw their way towards their dreams, that they’d both understood their sexuality from a young age—before they got down to the most consistently mind-blowing sex that Esme had experienced, there was one thing they never talked about, and it was what was absolutely going to blow them up at some point.

It was a bad, bad road she was riding down, but Esme couldn’t bring herself to get off it. This was nothing like she’d experienced before—and hadn’t been since the first moment Nora walked through the door of the Lounge. Nora Hartley represented the destruction of Esme’s life-work, her Ikegai, her purpose. But she also represented excitement on a level that Esme had never before experienced. That was a heady high Esme was hard pressed to turn her back on.

The best she could do for herself was keep these assignations to a strict schedule. Esme only allowed Nora to come by every two or three days.

She pulled her phone out of her bra and checked the time. 7:30 PM. Hours to go before she let Nora in through the back door of the Lounge again. Between her thighs, she felt herself growing warm and full just at the thought of what would happen tonight.

Trouble, trouble, trouble. Her life right now was nothing but pure trouble.

Nora’s head fell back against the shelves behind Esme’s desk. Her vision was dotted with sparkling little stars and her toes ached from how hard they’d curled up when Esme made her come. “Jesus Christ,” she breathed. She flattened a hand out over her racing heart, willing it to slow down.

Esme, sitting in the desk chair, eased Nora’s legs gently down off her shoulders and rolled back. She seemed to be looking around on the floor for something. “Where’d you throw my top?”

Blinking, Nora tried to look around the office. “It can’t have gone too far. You basically work out of a closet.” As her vision cleared, she spotted a crumpled wad of blue fabric piled on top of the lone filing cabinet shoved into the back corner of the little room. “Is that it, the blue thing over there?”

Esme stood up and pulled her pink-flowered bikini panties up. Pushing her hair back from her face, she squinted towards the filing cabinet. “Ah. Yes. Thank you.”

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