A Taste of Sin (19 page)

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Authors: Fiona Zedde

Tags: #African American Women, #General, #Romance, #Erotic Fiction, #Adult, #Love Stories, #Fiction, #Lesbian, #Lesbians

BOOK: A Taste of Sin
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“Restocking your store?”
“Nope, just my personal library. This place is great. They have an amazing selection of out-of-print books here. I would much rather live here than Miami.”
“You think so?” Dez stood to help her with her books.
At Dez’s telling glance around the store with its homogenous, pale-eyed crowd, Victoria grimaced. “Maybe not.”
“Maybe not.” Dez led her toward the register to check out.
 
The rest of their afternoon passed in a blur of shopping and sightseeing until Dez pled mercy and demanded that Victoria take her to dinner as a reward for all her hard work.
“I’m too old for all this exercise,” she complained, throwing their latest round of purchases in the back of the little SUV.
“Come on, wimp. Let’s go feed you before you collapse.”
“Finally,” Dez firmly closed the back of the Lexus. “My two hours of begging pay off.”
“You think
that
was begging? Wait until we get to know each other better.” Victoria walked off, leaving Dez to mull over that one.
 
“
This
is the best part of Sarasota.”
Dez reached over to steal a bite of Victoria’s neatly cut steak. The other woman gave her a mean look, but she ignored her, forking the tender piece of filet mignon into her mouth. Its aromatic juices flooded over her tongue as she chewed. Dez looked across the water at the slow dying burn of the sun across the sky.
“Is food all you think about?”
“Not at all.” Dez gave Victoria her best dirty-old-dyke look. “It’s definitely in the top two, though.”
Victoria laughed. “Why am I not surprised?”
“You’re a smart woman.” She nodded as the waiter reappeared to refill their wineglasses, then disappeared again. “Let’s drink a toast.” Dez raised her glass. “To uncharted territory.”
At Victoria’s questioning look, she shrugged. “Any excuse to lift a glass.” But Dez’s eyes were wicked and hungry. They both knew what “uncharted territory” she wanted to explore next.
Dez cleared her throat. “How long have you owned the bookstore?”
Victoria allowed the less-than-smooth segue. “It’s actually the other way around. Victoriana has me. Six years now.”
“Six? You weren’t on Biscayne when I left two years ago.”
“The store used to be in a smaller space before we were able to expand and move to the upper eastside.”
“I never figured you for a bookstore-owning type.”
“What did you think I was? A stripper?”
Dez choked on her laughter. “Not exactly. I never thought of you doing much of anything beyond having lunches with beautiful women and entertaining strangers for the weekend.”
“A society honey?”
“If you want to call it that, sure. Those hands of yours don’t look like they do much work. They look like mine.”
Victoria made a show of examining Dez’s hands. Finally, she said, “If you look closer you’ll see six years’ worth of paper cuts and staple puncture wounds,” she said. “Before that I was a full-time student. I had to quit the school game after they gave me my Ph.D.”
Dez was intrigued.
Dr.
Jackson. She vaguely remembered Victoria saying something about a doctorate before. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Older than you, I bet.”
“Come on, stop playing games and answer my question.”
“I guess you’re the only one allowed to play, huh?”
“We can play together anytime you want, Victoria.” Dez poured raw seduction into her voice.
“Thirty-six.”
“Seriously?” She raked Victoria with her gaze.
“The women in my family age very well.” It was Victoria’s turn to raise her glass.
“And what about your parents?” Dez asked.
“Both alive and happy.” Victoria traced the rim of her glass with an index finger, smiling. “They’re in Toronto still running the antique business they started before they had me.”
“You’re very lucky,” Dez said.
“Yes, I am.” Victoria murmured. “So are you. Both your parents are still alive. Cherish the fact that your mother is here now and still able to tell you that she loves you.”
“All that, huh?”
“Yeah. All that. I lost my brother while I was in college. I know.”
She squeezed Victoria’s hand, felt the empathy well up inside her, but said nothing. Anything she said would seem trite and ridiculous. In the face of that real loss, her situation was nothing. Dez squeezed her hand again, then pulled back to reach for her wine.
Dez had never made any effort to get to know someone outside her established circle of friends without the eventual goal of getting them into bed. Had never wanted to. But she wanted more than that with Victoria. That much was obvious by now. She didn’t know if she’d have let herself pursue the woman without that being true. Derrick would never forgive Dez if she treated his best friend like all the others. But she had no experience with this, didn’t even know how to proceed.
Victoria called her name. “Tell me about your aunt,” she said.
“Really?” Dez cocked an eyebrow at Victoria. The other woman nodded, seemingly giving permission for the old memories of her favorite and only aunt to bubble up, warm and bittersweet. Dez smiled. “There’s not much to tell, actually. She was a lot like me. Or, more accurately, I’m a lot like her. She didn’t have to work. Her father was some kind of a doo-wop singer back in the day, and he had a couple of hit songs that they always play on certain stations and at certain times of the year. Although she was his love child, she was also his only child. After he died, she started getting royalty checks from his music. Because her lifestyle was pretty modest, she invested most of the money. Her only luxuries were women, her bike, and good food.”
“Yeah,” Victoria chuckled. “She sounds a lot like you, all right.”
“Except I have a few more essential wants than she did.”
“I can imagine.” She met Dez’s eyes across the small table.
Her look said that she imagined all sorts of things where her dining companion was concerned; things that she wasn’t quite ready to share yet. Victoria cleared her throat. “Would you like dessert?”
 
They left that evening, packing up the remains of their weekend in silence. Dez would have liked to put her mind on the next day, on the possibility of finding her father in town and protecting herself and her mother against him, but her preoccupation with Victoria wouldn’t let her. On the drive back to Miami, she asked the question that had been burning her tongue for hours.
“If all I had to offer you was sex, would you take it?” Victoria looked at her. “
Is
that all you have?”
Dez shook her head. “I’m not sure, but I don’t want to commit to something and end up breaking you when I can’t do it. And I don’t make promises when I’m not one hundred percent sure.” She briefly met Victoria’s eyes. “What I am sure of is that I want you. You know that. When we talked you said you don’t want to ruin your relationship with Derrick. Fair enough. But what if you just experiment? Try me on for size, so to speak. And if it turns out that you only want me for sex, then we can get that out of our systems and no one would even have to know about it. Once that’s done, you can go on being Derrick’s friend. No harm, no foul, everyone gets satisfied.” Dez grinned wolfishly.
“Are you joking?”
“Why would I be? I never joke about something this serious.”
“Sex?” Victoria’s tone was incredulous.
“Yes.”
“Have I ever told you what a bad woman you are?”
“Yes. And you can keep on telling me.” Dez’s voice dropped to a deep rumble. “All night. For as long as you want.” She turned back to the road. “Think about it. I can get you off however you need, whenever you need it. No complications.”
Chapter 16
 
“
I
had fun this weekend.” Victoria turned around with her duffel in hand. She moved it behind her and it made a noise as it scraped against the door. She dropped it on the step and moved toward Dez. “Thank you.”
“Anytime. I enjoyed your company very much.” Dez brushed her fingertips across the other woman’s cheek. “Let’s . . . get together again. Soon.”
“Yes.” The air from that simple word brushed Dez’s lips as they came closer to Victoria’s. They hovered then, at no sign of resistance, made contact.
Christ!
Wetness flooded down, coating her swollen pussy lips.
And all I did was kiss her.
She felt Victoria’s hands on the back of her shirt, pressing into, then under the cotton. They both trembled.
“Can I come in?” The heat in Victoria’s mouth and hands made Dez feel feverish. And horny as hell.
“No.”
She used her tongue to try and make her case, licking at the full lips before diving in again to taste every corner of her mouth. Then her hips came into play, pushing and gliding against Victoria’s, even holding her against the door and promising a taste of something she’d never had before. But what she had really wanted all day long was to know the shape of that ass, to feel it move under her palms, to squeeze its firmness. And she did so now.
“Fuck,” a voice breathed.
Who said that?
It didn’t matter. They both wanted it. But they also knew what was on the line if Victoria let Dez in.
“You have to go.” Victoria pulled away. Her mouth was wet and slightly swollen. “I’ll call you later.” She stumbled inside and closed the door in Dez’s face.
Dez stood outside the house, burning. There were so many things she could have done, would have done, if so much wasn’t at stake. She leaned her forehead against the door.
“Victoria?” Her voice was hoarse.
She felt her through the door, a faint conflicted presence. “Tonight, I’m going to be thinking about you.” Her fingers curled against the wood. She fought the urge to say something else, to tell Victoria how good she could make it, how she would come for hours, how Dez would fill her up, make her scream with pleasure—if only she’d open the door. She swallowed. “Call me soon.”
 
Dez felt restless. Pent up. On the drive home, images of Victoria, sweating and hot, pressed against her own front door arching her wet pussy for Dez’s mouth, tormented her. It was dark. There were high bushes to shield the yard from the eyes of passersby. No one would see. And even if someone could see, so what? Victoria had been so close to giving in. So close. Dez felt like she’d wanted this woman forever. This waiting shit was for celibates and fools. She pressed her hand against her aching clit through her jeans and groaned.
 
As she was pulling into her driveway, the cell phone rang.
“Your father just got in tonight,” Claudia said after Dez’s hello. “He wants to have drinks with all of us tomorrow.”
Shit.
“Fantastic. Tell him I can’t make it.”
“Darling, please. Derrick will be there. You should, too.”
Not fair. Not fair at all. “All right. I’ll come. Where is it?” She parked the truck in the garage and turned off the engine.
“Their suite at the downtown Hilton. Seven o’clock. Call the hotel to get the room number. I can’t remember it right now.”
Claudia probably barely remembered her own name right now. All because of that asshole ex-husband of hers. “I’ll be there.”
“Thank you.” She heard a smile in her mother’s voice. “I owe you one.”
“You owe me several, but who’s counting? See you tomorrow.” She closed the phone and tucked it in her pocket.
 
The next day came much too quickly. So did the night. She rode up in the mirrored elevator at the Hilton, sneaking occasional peeks at her reflection. If she didn’t know better she’d say that she looked nervous with her tight mouth and darting eyes that couldn’t stay on any one thing for long.
Fuck him for doing this to me.
With a deep breath, Dez forced herself to calm down. She consciously relaxed her shoulders, loosening everything inside her—except her bowels—before looking back in the mirror. This was better. She looked arrogant and cocksure again, her preferred façade whenever she was out in the world. Besides, it was the one that got her the most pussy. And speaking of which . . . a woman two bodies away was also giving her reflection the eye. Reflexively, Dez winked. The woman, peach-colored and pretty in a farm girl kind of way, blushed and looked away. A bell signaled the fifteenth floor.
In honor of the occasion, Dez had worn black, appropriately funereal slacks, a button-down shirt, and her favorite leather jacket. As she got off the elevator, she felt the woman’s gaze on her ass. She strutted down the hall to give the farmer’s daughter an eyeful. It wasn’t until she was halfway down the hall that she realized that she was going the wrong way. At least the elevator doors had already closed. Dez doubled back to find the right room. Warrick came to the door when she knocked.

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