Radclyffe - Passion's Bright Fury Read online

  "Okay, but if you pick someone up along the way, let me know. I can always get a cab home if you get tied up."

  Melissa gave her a wide grin, and Jude punched her on the arm. "That isn't what I meant."

  "I know, I know. I'll be back in a few minutes."

  As her friend set off and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd, Jude turned back to the dance floor and idly observed the activities. Smoke hung like mist, and the strobes gave everyone an otherworldly appearance. Watching women moving against each other to the rhythm of the pulse pounding beat, hands disappearing beneath T-shirts, hips straddling thighs, and mouths seeking sweat-dampened skin, she became aware of her own body responding. She doubted she would have been as sensitive if she hadn't already been aroused when she arrived, but the time it taken them to grab a quick sandwich and to walk the few blocks to the bar had not been enough to dissipate the effects of the intensely erotic encounter she'd had in the hallway of the hospital with a woman she barely knew. That was not a thought she wanted to dwell on, and she tried to distract herself from thinking about it by glancing around.

  The second time her gaze swept the shadows near the edge of the room, she caught her breath in surprise and pressed harder against the column that supported her, unconsciously attempting to hide from view. Barely ten feet away, Saxon Sinclair leaned against the wall, most of her body shrouded in darkness, but her face starkly highlighted in the flickering strobe light.

  Irrationally, Jude didn't want the surgeon to know that she was there. Sinclair had obviously come straight to the club after leaving them earlier; she was still in her jeans and T-shirt. Standing with her head tilted back against the wall, one arm dangling by her side holding a longneck bottle loosely in her fingers, she appeared to be eerily removed from her surroundings. Jude was so close she could see sweat shining like jewels on her face. Her lids looked heavy, her eyes partially closed, and in any other setting Jude would have thought her half asleep. But that clearly wasn't the case. A woman, her back to Jude, was angled against Sinclair's side in such a way as to shield what she was doing from those nearby. From where Jude stood, however, she had an unimpeded view. With a gasp of astonishment and an unwelcome rush of irrational envy, she realized that the woman's hand was moving under Sinclair's shirt. And if the expression on Sinclair's face was any indication, the caress was a little more than casual. Jude knew she should look away, but the bleak beauty of Sinclair's arousal already mesmerized her.

  Sax had no idea she was being observed. Her vision was unfocused as she stared unseeing above the heads of those around her. She felt the thunderous vibration of the music hammer through the floor and up her legs, a furtive accompaniment to the echoing surge deep inside her. She was dimly conscious of the heat from the woman leaning into her, but most of her awareness was focused on the cadenced movement of the woman's fingers on her bare skin. The muscles in her abdomen contracted involuntarily as the progressively firmer strokes trailed along her ribs and edged down toward the top of her jeans; the occasional rasp of a fingernail underscored the building pressure with a swift jolt of electricity that threatened to elicit a groan. She had never lost the hard, heavy fullness that had started in the hallway outside her on-call room, and by the time that this stranger had moved up beside her in the anonymous night of the darkened bar, her arousal had moved from pleasure to the edge of pain. Stiffening as a practiced hand discreetly opened the buttons on her fly, she worked to maintain her composure. She was willing to acknowledge her physical needs, and accepted the offered release, but emotionally she was determined to remain detached. Even as her hips involuntarily arched forward, her fingers tightening on the smooth cylinder of the beer bottle, she didn't look at the woman touching her. When skillful fingers unerringly found her, closing firmly along her length, her thighs shook with the effort to contain the explosion. She pressed her head hard against the wall, swallowing convulsively, struggling not to orgasm immediately. She forced herself to concentrate on the faces swimming in the crowd in front of her, meaning to distract herself from the rhythmic torment of the fingers now stroking harder and faster over her clitoris, pushing her closer to her limits. With sudden clarity, she found herself staring into the same incendiary gaze that had nearly demolished her a few hours earlier. She fell into Jude Castle's eyes, and came instantly.

  Jude almost felt the orgasm as it flew across Sinclair's face, and watching her shudder--jaws clamped shut, body rigid--imagined she could hear her moan. Her own stomach clenched, a molten trail of fire searing along her spine, and for one precarious second, she feared she might go over with her. It took every shred of will power she possessed to contain the surging pulsations that gathered between her legs and threatened to peak as Sinclair's eyes fluttered closed with the last wrenching spasm.

  Jude forced herself to breathe. Finally, with an effort that tested much more than her mental resolve, she dragged her eyes away from Sinclair's face. She didn't need to view anymore to know that she was going to be haunted by what she had seen.

  When Sax finally opened her eyes, aftershocks still rippling through her, the woman who had delivered a brief wordless respite was gone, and so was Jude Castle.

  *****

  Chapter twelve

  July 5th

  6:02 AM

  "How did you sleep?" Melissa asked as she joined Jude at a table in the hospital cafeteria. She removed her coffee, a small carton of milk, and a cardboard box of cereal from a tray, sliding it onto the empty seat beside them. "Considering you didn't even want to stay to finish our second beer, I figured you must have been pretty beat."

  In fact, she was desperately trying to figure out what had brought about the change in Jude's attitude in fifteen short minutes the night before. After maneuvering her way through the circuitous line to the bathroom and then clamoring over people in the bar line to secure two fresh beers, she had finally rejoined Jude only to discover that her friend wanted to leave immediately. Jude had kindly assured her she would grab a cab and had only waited to let her know she was leaving, but Mel figured she might as well go, too. She wasn't planning on scoring, and would've been too tired even if she had gotten lucky, so there was no point in hanging around. Nevertheless, she couldn't help feeling that something had happened while she was gone. Jude looked positively spooked and hadn't said more than two words the entire time it had taken them to walk back to the hospital and pick up Mel's car. No matter how hard she tried, Mel couldn't get Jude to say anything on the ride uptown either. Finally she had just given up and left her to her preoccupied silence.

  "I slept fine," Jude said without elaboration. She was working on her second cup of coffee and trying valiantly to finish a bagel, because she knew it might be a very long time before she ate again, and she definitely didn't want any reason not to be sharp when she needed to be. The last thing she wanted was to get lightheaded from hunger in front of Sinclair. "I feel great."

  She had no intention of telling Mel what she didn't want to think about herself. When she had arrived home the night before, she had been too keyed up to sleep. The walk to get Mel's car and the short ride home had mercifully taken the edge off her acute state of stimulation, but she was afraid if she got into bed wide awake, all she would do was think about how incredibly erotic Sinclair's face had been as she climaxed, and then the low-level of desire still humming along her nerve endings would flare into flame and she would never get to sleep. Not without relief. She knew it wouldn't take much, not considering how hot and hard she had been less than an hour before-a few well-placed strokes and a little pressure and she would lose it. Just what I need, she'd snarled to herself , jerk-off fantasies about a woman I have to see every day. God. Instead, she'd settled on a shower and shampoo to rid herself of the smoky, musky scent of the bar and her own pervasive excitement.

  "Great," Melissa said, attacking her cornflakes with vigor. So don't tell me what's going on. Fine.

  Jude muttered noncommittally, her mind still on the previous night. The
shower had relaxed her and helped her get to sleep, but unfortunately it had done nothing to eradicate whatever unfinished business simmered in her imagination. An hour before dawn, she'd been jolted awake by her own sharp cry as the intensely sexual scenario she had been dreaming culminated in a violent orgasm. Gasping, heart racing, her palm pressed against the heat between her thighs, she had curled on her side and moaned into the darkness. Eyes wide open, searching the shadows, she had seen Saxon Sinclair's face.

  "What?" Jude asked, vaguely aware that Mel had been speaking to her. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before. She had always enjoyed sex, and orgasm was usually easy to attain with a considerate partner, but she couldn't ever recall climaxing while asleep. But then again, she couldn't ever recall her body taking over quite the way it had the night before during a simple conversation either. For her, sex usually was a head thing. Lori was the perfect example. When they had met at the home of a mutual acquaintance, she had found the bright, outgoing attorney attractive, but that wasn't really the primary motivating factor behind her acceptance when Lori had suggested they see one another again. After having talked with her for several hours at the party, comparing notes on professional goals and relationship philosophies, Jude had realized they would make a good pair. Dating Lori just made good sense.

  Nothing about what had happened the previous evening with Saxon Sinclair made sense. In fact, thinking about it made her head hurt. Even worse, thinking about it made her body pick up where it had left off in the early morning hours. She absolutely could not walk around for the next thirty hours in a state of arousal. Resolutely, she picked up her bagel and began to eat.

  "Hello? Earth to Jude?"

  Startled, Jude stopped in mid-bite and stared across the table. Mel was regarding her with a quizzical expression. "What?"

  "You said that already," Melissa commented dryly. "I feel like I'm in the middle of an Abbott and Costello scene. Pretty soon I'm going to ask 'Who's on first?'"

  "Sorry," Jude replied, firmly banishing all thoughts of sex and sexy surgeons from her consciousness. "Where were we?"

  "Uh…I was asking about the game plan for today?"

  Thankfully back on familiar ground, Jude informed her, "Deb left a message on my machine that she's doing an 8 AM surgery, so I want to tape it. I asked Jerry to meet us here at 6:30 to set up the sound in the OR. While he's here I want him to look at the situation in the trauma admitting area, too. Maybe we can fiddle with the mic placements down there and boost our sound quality a little bit. I think it's okay, but I don't want to miss anything critical during an alert."

  "It won't hurt to check," Melissa agreed. "How do you want to play it during this live surgery thing?"

  "Deb said that she'd be doing a lot of the case, so I think our focus should be on showing her level of responsibility now. Then we can contrast it to the changes at the end of the year."

  "That makes sense if we're going to focus on her transition from trainee to full-fledged trauma surgeon." Melissa indicated the bagel on the plate Jude had pushed aside. "Are you going to eat that?"

  "No," Jude said, still thinking about the upcoming shoot. "Take it. We also need to get the interaction between Sinclair and Deb this morning. Whenever they're together, that's where the action will be."

  "Uh huh," Melissa said, reaching for the bagel, "I've got a feeling wherever Sinclair is, that's where the action is."

  "For Christ's sake, Mel, can't you keep it in your pants once in a while?" Jude snapped. "At least while we're working?"

  Melissa gaped at her, astonished by her implacable friend's quick flare of temper. "Jude? Hello? Are you in there? Did the pod people visit your apartment last night?"

  "Hell, I'm sorry," Jude said immediately. She shrugged her shoulders, trying to release some of the tension. "It's just that I've got a lot riding on this project."

  "Sure," Melissa said easily, although she considered that explanation total bullshit. Whatever burr Jude had up her butt, it had to do with Saxon Sinclair, because every time the woman's name was mentioned, Jude went into orbit. However, poking a sore spot was not her intention. "Why don't we divide and conquer? I'll head over to the OR with my gear, and you can meet Jerry and check the sound system down in the trauma admitting area?"

  "Thanks, Mel," Jude said appreciatively, squeezing her friend's forearm briefly. "I'll meet you upstairs in half an hour...and I'll try to find my sense of humor along the way."

  Melissa watched her walk away, wondering what it was about Saxon Sinclair and Jude Castle that she was missing.

  *****

  "Just make sure you don't touch anything that's green," the scrub nurse said with practiced nonchalance. "All the green sheets are sterile." It wasn't the first time she'd had to contend with visitors in the OR, and it usually fell to her to make sure they didn't contaminate the sterile surgical field. The surgeons were usually too busy working, or too busy talking to the media people, to pay attention to that kind of detail.

  "Right," Jude said, standing out of the way as Deb entered the twenty by twenty foot windowless space escorting her patient along with several nurses. The entire bed had been wheeled down the hall from the TICU to the operating suite, apparently to avoid the necessity of moving the patient and all the life-support equipment twice. She looked over at Mel to make sure her camera was rolling. It was unnecessary, but it was a habit she would never be able to break.

  Once the patient was situated, Deb left to scrub her hands at the large industrial size stainless steel sinks just outside the door. Jude was surprised that Sinclair was nowhere in evidence. She had assumed that the trauma chief would be participating in the operation with Deb. Occupying herself with dictating her log, noting the time and particulars of the taping session, she refused to acknowledge her disappointment. She'd already spent too much of her morning thinking about Sinclair.

  A few minutes later, the trauma fellow returned, keeping her hands elevated above the level of her elbows so that the water would not stream down from the upper part of her arms to her hands, potentially contaminating them. The scrub nurse handed Deb a towel, then helped her into a sterile gown, and gloved her. While this was happening, the circulating nurse exposed the patient and painted the twenty something-year-old man's neck, chest, and abdomen with an antiseptic iodine solution. Twenty minutes later, Deb had finished a tracheostomy and had moved on to his abdomen, where she made an incision that started at his breastbone and ended just below his umbilicus.

  "A tracheostomy is necessary because his lungs were damaged by all the fluid we needed to give him during resuscitation as well as by toxic breakdown products from injured tissue. He'll need ventilator support for quite a while," Deb explained as she worked. "Plus, we don't expect him to be conscious and able to eat for at least a few weeks. That's why I'm going to put a feeding tube directly into his intestine so that he can be fed that way."

  At that moment, the door opened, and Sax entered. The atmosphere in the room altered perceptibly, or so it seemed to Jude. The light banter that had been flowing easily between the members of the operating team suddenly ceased, the unexpected silence echoing pointedly. Sax appeared not to notice, but moved up close behind her fellow.

  "Same case, Stein?" she asked with a hint of challenge in her deep voice. "You've been in here for forty minutes already. I've finished the newspaper and I'm running out of things to read."

  "I'm about half done," Deb said, apparently unperturbed by the mild heckling.

  "Well, just don't make it your life's work," Sinclair commented sharply as she peered over Deb's shoulder into the wound. "Did you run the bowel yet?"

  "Not yet. I just got into the belly."

  "Make sure you do."

  With that, Sax backed away from the operating table and crossed to Jude's side. "Good morning."

  "Good morning," Jude replied, meeting Sax's eyes above the surgical mask that crossed the bridge of her nose and concealed the rest of her face. She hoped her voice sounded calm,
because she felt anything but. She hadn't been sure what to expect from their first face-to-face meeting following the previous evening's unintentional intimacy-an awkward embarrassment at the very least. When Sinclair's eyes held hers unflinchingly, unapologetically, it wasn't discomfiture she felt, but an unanticipated excitement. She knows I saw her last night in the bar and she doesn't care.

  "Everything going all right?" Sax asked, nodding toward Melissa opposite them with her video equipment.

  "Yes, fine," Jude replied. Here we are discussing business like nothing ever happened. First I watched you have sex and then I spent half the night lusting after you. This is nuts. She put her jumbled emotions firmly from her mind and concentrated on her work. "Can I ask a question?"

  Sax considered Jude silently for a moment, remembering the astonishing feeling of being driven to orgasm by the mere image of her face. She couldn't ever remember anyone moving her so powerfully, even when they were actually in bed together. I wonder if she has any idea what she did to me?

  "Go ahead," Sax said, matching Jude's casual tone.

  "What does it mean to run the bowel?" She wanted to know, but mostly she wanted to think about something--anything--other than how heart-stoppingly beautiful Sinclair had looked as she was about to come.

  Sax's eyes, the only part of her face visible, revealed a mixture of amusement and regret. Well, that answers that question. Our exchange last night obviously had more of an effect on me than it did on her.

  "She needs to physically examine all of the internal organs to be sure there is no damage or disease. One of the easiest ways to do that is to gently pull the intestine through her fingers, so she can check for any tears or tumors or vascular damage. Then she'll hold the bowel aside to look at the liver and spleen and palpate the kidneys et cetera."

  Jude watched Sinclair's face while she spoke and something in her tone, and the intensity in her eyes, struck a chord. She had that disconcerting feeling of déjà vu again, and just as she was about to recall from where, Deb called, "Dr. Sinclair?" and Sax looked away.