Page 43 of SapphicLover69
“Stop it!” I ordered and covered her mouth with mine. My brain turned to mush, my mind a delirium of fog as I tasted her open lips. My tongue seemed to have a will of its own, diving into her mouth to savor the exquisite nectar nestled within. Delectable sensations overloaded my frayed system, and I surrendered to my desire. Lost in the dance, I hadn’t noticed when Winter took the wheel. She drove me like she was piloting a rocket ship, with a thrust and vitality I hadn’t predicted. Rather than quench my thirst for her, the passion of the kiss only intensified it.
Breathless, I eased back, keeping one arm around her shoulder. I realized my other hand had somehow gotten entwined in her silky hair. Easing it out, I cradled her cheek and gazed into her incandescent eyes with honesty. “I thought about it, about this, almost nonstop for the past two days.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Disentangling myself from her, I shifted to the end of the loveseat to catch my breath, putting a few inches between us. My pulse throbbed in places it shouldn’t. Someone needed to slow this juggernaut down before we careened over a cliff from which there would be no going back.
“When I was nineteen, the summer after my freshman year in college, an attractive older woman approached me at the beach. She was there alone on vacation and looking for someone to show her a good time. Well, she showed me a spectacular time indeed,” I recounted with a suggestive inflection. “She was my first—to go all the way, that is. I’d had a couple of girlfriends,but anyway. The week was so magical—her laugh, her smile, her caresses. Then she went back home to Nebraska, or some such place, and that was it. I mean, I thought we had something special. I gave her my phone number and email address, but I never heard from her again.
“For a while, I was devastated. Then I just accepted it had only been a summer fling for her, not a life-changing experience. I remember how horrible I felt afterward, and I didn’t want that for you.”
“You mean, if you had—with me—it would have only been a fling?” Winter’s voice was thick with despair.
“No.” I dared to glance at her, afraid I’d see tears. That’s when I realized the tears were mine. “I don’t know if it was you or me I was trying to protect.” I sniffed and wiped away a traitorous teardrop.
“Winter, you said you like me, and I’ve seen the way you look at me, the way you race to protect me and take my side. The truth is, you don’t even know me. How can you say you like me? How can you have such faith in a total stranger?”
“You’re wrong, Aspen,” Winter professed with strength. She raised her chin, extended her arm across the back of the loveseat so that her fingers brushed my shirt, and peered at me defiantly. “I’ve been reading your posts and comments online for years, and I read all your books. You can’t create such vivid characters and take them through tragedies and triumphs with such fervent emotion without pouring a good chunk of your soul onto the pages. Your writing brims with optimism and compassion, even when you may not realize it, and that’s revealing too.
“Then I’ve paid close attention to you here,” she continued as if she was the prime authority on Aspen Wolfe. “I know R.B. and Selina invited you to go out with them Friday night and you didn’t because you’d already told Elaine you’d go on the Haunted New Orleans tour with her. You could have given heran excuse; I mean, you’d only just met her. Who wouldn’t want to sit at the table with the cool kids? I know I always wished to and was never invited. Still, you displayed noble virtue by sticking with her and, by extension, the rest of us.”
Winter was on a roll, and, just like with the kiss, she was going for broke.
“You stood up for Q.L. and the others some people looked down on, and you were nice to me. I’m used to people glazing over me like I’m a piece of furniture or something, but you actually looked at me. You saw me.” Gratitude shone through in her tone and expressiveness, filling me with warmth.
“This weekend, you’ve been under stress and threats to your life yet took it in stride like the professional you are. When we were trapped in the room with the fire, I panicked—just for a minute, but all ability to think flew out the window and I feared I was going to die. Yet you kept your cool the whole time and didn’t give up or give in. When one thing didn’t work, you tried something else, just like your hero inQuick.”
I pointed a finger and squinted at her. “Now youknowyou were more instrumental in getting us out of that jam than I was.”
“It was a joint effort,” she conceded. “But my point is you didn’t freeze up. You’ve been kind to everyone you’ve met and never once talked smack behind their backs. And when you had the chance, you didn’t even punch Cary in the nose.”
A zealous smile of pride broke loose, and my gaze softened on Winter. “I didn’t need to. You’d already seen to that, my mighty protector.”
“Hey, don’t make fun!” An adorable pout pursed Winter’s lips. I leaned over and kissed them.
“I’m not making fun.” With a sigh, I leaned back and prepared to give my confession. “Everything you saw this weekend—the clothes, the makeup, the hair—was a façade, a role I played of a character I created.”
“I understand Aspen Wolfe is a pen name,” Winter stated. “And I don’t care about clothes or looks at all. Although I must admit, seeing you in that gown tonight took my breath away.”
An exhilarating tingle ran through me as I recalled her expression of awe.
“I also know you can’t fake your strength of character. Sure, I don’t know anything about your secret identity as a mild-mannered schoolteacher who hides her superpowers from the world, but I know the superhero who shows up to save the day intimately well. You think you’re that other person masquerading as Aspen Wolfe, when, really, youareAspen Wolfe, who just spends part of her life hiding out as the woman you think is so ordinary.”
Winter had thrown me completely off guard. How could she be so perceptive? Was she right? Had I unknowingly transformed into the person I had always aspired to be?
“Mary,” I murmured. Fear rushed in, flapped hideous bat wings, and screeched at me. I’d lose her for sure … or maybe … “Mary Jones—plain old Mary Jones who never got to sit at the cool kids’ table either.”
She took my hand and raised it to her lips. “Chloe. Chloe Dziedzic.”
An amiable laugh rumbled from my throat. “You’ll have to spell that one for me, sweetie.”
“How about I write it down, along with my phone number and email address?” She stuck her tongue in her cheek while her eyes danced with delight. “You see, I know my geography, that Milwaukee isn’t next door to St. Pete. But being a bona fide scientist, I want to remind you that we have these little inventions called telephones and computers, this thing called Skype where two people can communicate at a distance. Maybe you’ve heard of them?”
“I might have heard something about those,” I mused teasingly, then scooted closer, enveloping Chloe in my arms. The name suited her. It was cute, and so was she. “Long distance isn’t easy, Chloe,” I admitted.
“Neither is perfecting the schematics for a new robotic design, but it doesn’t stop me from trying.”
She was right there in my arms, offering herself to me, and it felt incredible. Every minute I spent with Chloe charged me with wonder and excitement. I wanted to make fly-me-to-the-moon love with her, right here and now. But more than that, I longed to do this right. I craved the same happy ending I always gave my leading ladies.
