Radclyffe & Stacia Seaman - Romantic Interludes 2 - Secrets Read online

  “True,” I admitted with a shrug.

  “I mean, I’ve never dated a guy who hasn’t met my mother first. Everything is orchestrated at temple. I think part of the reason that I accepted Alan’s proposal in the first place was just so I wouldn’t have to get fixed up with every available Jew within a hundred-mile radius.”

  I put my chin on my fist. “So you’re saying there’s a couple of Hebrews out there somewhere who haven’t gone out with you yet?”

  She laughed, which had been my intention. “There may be one or two who’ve not had the pleasure. What about you?”

  “If I dated a Jew, I wasn’t aware,” I said, being purposely vague.

  “Well, are you seeing anyone?”

  I winced, my discomfort plainly evident. “I go out. But I’m not seeing anyone in particular.”

  “You never talk about your dates, Laney,” she said, finishing off her Betty Grable. “Do yours make you as miserable as mine make me?”

  “I just don’t get serious like you do,” I replied weakly.

  “On purpose?”

  “I suppose so.” This line of questioning needed to end quickly. I hopped up and walked back behind the bar. “Do you want another drink?”

  She seemed to stop and consider the question before nodding, so I started mixing the ingredients.

  “You know,” I suggested, as I rattled the cocktail shaker in front of her, “I’m thinking that you didn’t really love him.” I know that was certainly the thought that I was consoling myself with.

  “Maybe not. I don’t even know anymore. I can’t seem to tell the difference between what I want and what I’m supposed to want.” She blew her bangs out of her eyes in what was patently the most adorable fashion I had ever seen.

  I set the glass before her and watched her take a large gulp. “You really should slow down,” I advised. “You don’t want to make yourself sick. I’m probably not the best person to clean you up and see you home afterward.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said, squinting at me.

  What the hell did that mean? Before I could even form the words to ask, the jukebox started playing part one of Benny Goodman’s raucous “Sing Sing Sing.”

  “I love this song,” she said. “Dance with me.”

  Now before you get the wrong idea, Marjorie and I had jitterbugged about a thousand times before. In fact, we both learned how to dance by dancing with each other. I won’t lie and say that those weren’t some of the happiest memories from my teen years, but we were young women in our early twenties now. It had been years since we had danced together.

  “I dunno,” I said sheepishly.

  “Come on. It would make me feel better,” she replied, entwining her fingers in mine and tugging playfully. And since I was not genetically coded to tell Marjorie no, I came out from behind the bar, confidently took her in my arms, and we began to dance.

  I had forgotten how wonderful it felt to hold her—spin her—fling her around. I know I was grinning like a Cheshire cat, but part of that was because so was Marjorie. We were great together, I decided.

  I really could have danced like that with her for hours—relying on pure adrenaline and pheromones to cancel out what would undoubtedly become exploded patellas and bloody stumps where my feet once were. But Wurlitzer would not have that. He had something else in mind for me, that wily bastard.

  Marjorie and I were spinning as the song ended, and to make sure that I didn’t send her flying headfirst into the wall, I had a very tight hold on her. Our rotation slowed as the record switched, the thumping swing replaced by the lilting melody of Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade.”

  I contemplated letting go of her until I recognized that she was still holding on to me. “This is my favorite song,” she whispered as she moved her hands into position so that I was now leading her in a slow dance.

  Feeling like I might never have this opportunity again, I started moving her lithely around the floor. My right hand settled on her hip—as I had dreamt ten thousand times before—and it felt just as incredible as I had imagined.

  “You’re really good at this,” she said, sounding surprised.

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you go dancing a lot?”

  Crap. Somehow we were back to me and my love life. “I’ve spent a little time on the dance floor,” I replied evasively. “But you’re by far the best partner I’ve ever had.”

  What the hell was I saying? Had I gone crazy? Was I actually flirting with my best friend? The straight one? The one who up until this morning was engaged to be married?

  Before I chastised myself further, I fell into the dark chocolate of Marjorie’s eyes. She was looking at me in a way I could easily get used to. Perhaps it was the romance of the song, I reasoned, or maybe it was her emotional state.

  When her index finger slid slowly up the side of my neck to the base of my hairline, I got goose bumps. Approaching sensory overload, I closed my eyes, afraid that I would not be able to hide the lust she was evoking in me.

  “Laney, why can’t relationships with men be as easy as it is with you?”

  Jesus, this was killing me. I opened my eyes, and the intensity I saw in her gaze stole my breath. “Because they don’t love you like I do.”

  I had answered honestly without thinking. But her expression remained unchanged.

  “And how do you love me?”

  I was unable to even try and craft a cute, pithy response, which left me with nothing to fall back on but sincerity—something that had rarely worked for me in the past.

  “Completely,” I rasped, as our bodies continued to sway to the music. “Without limits or conditions.”

  The words left my mouth and I was only partially cognizant of what I was admitting. But that tiny sliver of me that was lucid was bracing for the inevitable response from her of horror and rejection. I studied her face and none of that registered.

  Her finger again lightly traced the back of my neck, and the realization began to dawn on me that she wanted me to kiss her. Before I could rethink it and convince myself otherwise, I leaned in and brushed my lips softly against hers.

  The music and our surroundings melted away as our mouths moved sensually against each other. It was all I had ever fantasized it would be, and so very much more. I would have been convinced that my heart had stopped beating were it not for the pounding pulse that was rushing through every extremity of my body.

  Her lips tasted like grenadine, coaxing my tongue inside to savor whatever other sensations awaited me there. Her mouth was warm and sweet, and the kiss became deeper—hungrier. My hands framed her face as our dancing stopped. Marjorie grabbed a fistful of my hair, and the feel of it consumed me with an ardor that, were I thinking clearly, I would not have allowed myself.

  I’m not sure how long we kissed, but when we finally broke apart, we were both breathless—our eyes glassy with a smoldering, consuming heat.

  “You’re really good at that too,” she finally said. A response that I had to admit was far superior to any that I had previously fictionalized on the many lonely nights I spent imagining this moment.

  “Marjorie, what are we doing?” I finally asked. I searched her eyes cautiously for any sign of remorse.

  I waited for her answer, my hands sliding tentatively around her waist. Instead of replying, Marjorie—my unattainable Marjorie Stein—lifted her hand to my cheek and brushed her thumb tenderly across my lower lip. And that was all the answer I needed.

  I kissed her again, adequately convinced that I was not the only one who wanted this. My thumbs lightly brushed across her nipples, and I felt them stiffen through her cardigan before my hands moved to caress the small of her back and her sumptuous backside.

  “I’ve wanted you for so long,” I whispered near her ear as my tongue snaked along the lobe.

  “I know,” she said.

  “How long?” I asked, moving to her collarbone.

  “I don’t know.” Her voice softly tr
embled. “I told myself that I should stay away from you. I should listen to my mother and get engaged to a nice boy with money.”

  “Look where that got you,” I said, my teeth grazing the skin of Marjorie’s shoulder.

  “Of course, I had no idea that you would be so”—she moaned provocatively, and I made a mental note to keep doing everything that I was doing at that precise moment—“damned…skilled. Should I ask where you learned how to do all this?”

  Was that what all her questions tonight had been about? “Nothing matters now but you. Come home with me.”

  I pulled back to gauge her response and was pleased to see her hunger unabated, her swollen, freshly kissed lips curving into a small, somewhat naughty grin.

  “Aren’t you worried that you’re taking advantage of me?” Her palms traveled down my chest to my stomach, and then around my waist. “I am, after all, emotionally vulnerable.”

  “Just how I like ’em,” I said glibly.

  She chuckled, but her gaze looked as though she wanted to devour me. “And I am just the tiniest bit tipsy.”

  “Doubtful,” I replied as I slipped my fingers inside her sweater and stroked the outside of her silky bra. “There wasn’t any liquor in that drink.”

  Marjorie’s face registered shock, perhaps partially from what I was doing to her under her clothing, and partially from my admission. “No?”

  “No. The Betty Grable is just like the Shirley Temple…just sexier-sounding.”

  Our mouths met again, and I thought I would combust when she playfully nipped my bottom lip with her teeth.

  “Then let’s go,” she murmured against me. “Because I’m all out of excuses, Laney.”

  I nodded. “I am too.”

  I closed my eyes and silently thanked that bastard Alan…and the planets that had somehow inexplicably aligned in my favor. And of course Glenn Miller, who created the most perfect love song there has ever been.

  Lesley Davis lives with her American partner Cindy in the West Midlands of England. She is a die-hard science-fiction/fantasy fan in all its forms and an extremely passionate gamer. Truth Behind the Mask from BSB is her newest romantic fantasy novel.

  The Twelfth Rose

  Lesley Davis

  Danya registered her door opening but it was the strong aroma of coffee that drew her attention away from her computer screen.

  “Cassie, you are a life saver,” she told her colleague.

  “And you need to come out of this damn office,” Cassie huffed. “Stretch those legs, rest your eyes, maybe even fetch your own coffee once in a while!”

  Danya cringed under her friend’s well-meaning advice. “I just need to finish this proposal and then I can relax a little.” Her attention drifted back to her screen where the facts and figures swam before her eyes in a mass of charts and equations.

  “You never relax, Dan, that’s your problem. You are too pretty to waste away behind your computer screen. Get out there! Meet Ms. Right!” Cassie slipped back through the door with one final parting shot. “Find out who your secret admirer is!”

  “Yeah, yeah, like that’s going to happen any time soon,” Danya grumbled, staring at the luscious red roses that sat in a vase on her desk. Eleven blooms that had mysteriously arrived one a day to steadily fill the vase. She rubbed her temples, hoping to alleviate the headache brewing there.

  Sipping the coffee, Danya leaned back in her chair and deliberately ignored the screen. Her office was bright and cheerful. She enjoyed her work. But it just wasn’t enough anymore. She wanted more from life than spreadsheets and projection forecasts. She shook her head, surprised by her uncharacteristic musings. She wasn’t the kind of person to waste time worrying about what she didn’t have. After all, she was happy. Wasn’t she?

  Her computer chimed and a small pop-up box appeared in the middle of her screen.

  I have this indescribable ache for you.

  “What?” Realizing she’d spoken out loud, she quickly checked to see if anyone had heard her. No one in the large office beyond her partially open door was looking in her direction. Another chime sounded.

  I need to tell you how you make me feel.

  “Oh,” she said softly, her skin tingling at the intimate words. Then she frowned, wondering if she was being set up by one of the office clowns. She heard the chime again as she was casting a more critical eye over the people directly in her line of vision. No one seemed to be looking her way.

  This isn’t a joke, I promise you.

  Danya laughed. “Oh, first you’re inside my computer and now you’re reading my mind. Who are you?”

  Will you accept these messages?

  “Sure, let’s see who you are.” Danya moved her curser to highlight the “continue” arrow at the bottom of the box.

  I’m the one who desperately wanted to send you roses on Valentine’s Day but couldn’t work up the courage. I’ve been making up for it every day since.

  Smiling, Danya reread the words and gently stroked the soft petals on an open red rose. Their appearance every day was a mystery to her and a major cause of speculation through the office.

  I like knowing that I’m the one who brings that beautiful smile to your face when you see the flowers on your desk. I watch you smell them every morning.

  Danya slowly lowered her hand from the bloom and again cast a wary eye around the office. She searched the faces of the people who could see inside her office and who could have witnessed her delight at the flowers’ daily arrival. Her gaze fell on the oldest member of her team, but he was staidly married and going on sixty. He was also so not her type. The girl next to him was too flighty to even work out how to switch her own computer on, let alone send private instant messages. Just behind them, though, at a smaller row of desks sat the IT Specialists. Danya couldn’t help but stare a little too long at Brynn, the tall, slender woman who could resurrect dead PCs with her capable touch and fix errant e-mail without uttering a word. Danya had been undeniably drawn to her since she’d joined the IT team two months ago. Could it be?

  Work pressures, her usual excuse, had kept her too busy to start up a friendship, let alone anything else. But that hadn’t stopped her from looking, and she found Brynn very charming to look at. Her sandy-colored hair was cropped short and her lean body belied the strength she displayed when moving office equipment around. Danya’s body tingled whenever Brynn was near her, yet they’d hardly spoken beyond the typical formalities.

  I’ve wanted to approach you for so long but I’ve been afraid. Stupid insecurity, I know, and I can’t hold it in any longer. I need to do more than give you roses to show you how I feel.

  Danya’s hand shook where it rested over the mouse. No one had ever said such things to her, with so much passion that the words reached out from the screen to caress her. A hot shiver ran through her body. She liked how it felt.

  Do you know you take my breath away when you come into the office every day? The scent you wear stays in the air only for a sweet while, teasing my senses. I want to get closer to you, to discover your own even sweeter scent.

  Danya swallowed hard as a rush of heat settled in her belly. She could almost hear Brynn’s deep voice whispering to her, suddenly feeling warm in places that had long been left cold.

  Can I tell you that you dominate my dreams? You leave me breathless and aching for your caress. Then when I see you, the reality of you makes my desire so much stronger. I have to struggle not to touch you whenever you’re near, to prove to myself that you are not just conjured from my desperate longings.

  Trembling, Danya surreptitiously watched Brynn rise from her desk and waited, holding her breath, for those dark eyes to look over and find her staring. But Brynn just handed a folder to a neighboring colleague and sat back down. Danya’s chest ached before she finally let out the breath.

  “What on earth is wrong with me, lusting after a woman in my office I don’t even know? Besides, she’s probably not the one sending me roses.” But she didn’t retur
n to her work. She stared at the computer screen, willing another message to appear.

  I long to run my fingers through your hair and feel the curls wrap themselves around me. I want to lift it from your neck and press soft kisses there, feel your pulse beneath my lips…hoping you want me as much as I want you.

  Danya shifted on her seat, praying her face wasn’t as red as it felt. Her body was hot and every nerve sang in tune when the chimes rang from her computer.

  I find myself fascinated by your hands. While the other women in the office marvel at how pretty your nails are manicured, all I think about is them raking across my back.

  Danya found herself looking at her fingernails. Short and manageable to cope with the endless typing. She never paid much attention to them other than to keep them brightly colored when she needed cheering up. Suddenly she saw them in a whole new light.

  Would you be as taken with my hands? They’re not soft like yours, but would hold you so tenderly that maybe you could forgive their broken skin and rough texture?

  Closing her eyes, Danya imagined being held by strong arms, feeling her face caressed by fingers that were just rough enough to cause a delicious friction. She shivered as she envisaged those hands going lower. She shot up in her chair and looked around, flustered.

  “This is totally inappropriate behavior in the workplace,” she grumbled, although she was one of the few who hadn’t been caught up in an office romance at one time or another. She kept watching the monitor, waiting.