The Color of Love (11 page)

As she strode quickly through the still busy
streets, dodging puddles and the occasional slush pile left over from the late
snow, she contemplated calling the hospital to check on Henrietta. After
eleven. Surely if there was some change, some problem, someone would’ve
contacted her by now. What the hell. The time didn’t really matter—hospitals
ran twenty-four seven. Skirting between cabs crowding across the intersection,
she pulled out her cell phone and scrolled to the number she’d saved earlier.
After half a dozen rings, the hospital operator answered and sent her through
to the intensive care unit.

“ICU, Higgins,” a man said.

“This is Derian Winfield. I was wondering if
you could give me an update on my aunt’s condition. Henrietta?”

“Hold on for a second.”

A little more than a second later, a woman
came on the line. “Hi, this is Sally, Henrietta’s nurse. Who is this, please?”

“Derian Winfield. Henrietta’s my aunt.”

“Oh, right, Penny mentioned you earlier.
She’s fine. All her vital signs are stable, her lab results look good, and
she’s resting comfortably.”

Derian wondered how they knew if Henrietta
was resting, comfortably or otherwise. If Henrietta had any say in things,
she’d be half-awake at all times, just to be sure everyone was keeping on
track. “Has she been alert, talking?”

“Every now and then she surfaces for a few seconds—a
minute, maybe—and she knows where she is. But it’s not unusual for patients
who’ve sustained this kind of physical insult to kind of draw back inside. It’s
part of the healing process. It’s perfectly normal.”

“Uh-huh.” Derian would have preferred hearing
HW was haranguing the staff and causing a fuss, but she knew it was too soon.
Her desire to make the whole damn nightmare go away wasn’t going to be enough
to make it so. “Thanks. You’ll be sure someone will call me if there’s any
change?”

“I’ll be here all night. If there’s any
problem, I’ll call you, and I’ll let her know you were asking for her if she
wakes up.”

“That’d be great. Thanks.” Derian
disconnected and slid the phone back into her pants pocket. The uneasy
sensation of her world being slightly atilt persisted. Trying to set aside her
worry over Henrietta, she let her thoughts drift back to Emily. She should be
home by now. A phone call would be out of line, but the need to hear her voice
made her fingers clench around her phone.

“Goddamn it,” she muttered. Somehow, she’d
let Emily escape without getting her phone number. For the best. Maybe her head
was in the game after all—only this time it was a game she wasn’t used to
playing.

She rarely took a woman’s number or exchanged
hers, unless she met someone she’d like to see again—someone whose sense of
humor, sharp intelligence, and love for the game matched her own. Then she gave
her number and took theirs after they agreed to the ground rules. No promises,
no strings, and above all, discretion. But she’d never been driven by some urge
deep inside to reconnect, to hold on.

Cosmos was where she remembered it, its sign
shimmering in reds and blues. She headed for it, shaking off the uncomfortable
sensations and unanswerable questions. A mix of traditional wine bar and dance
club, the long rectangular space was jammed from the entrance to the far back
reaches. People congregated six deep around the bar, shouting, drinking,
laughing. Everyone was young or wanted to be, beautiful and reckless and
seeking the next adventure. Music accosted her, a fast, frenetic beat that
matched the sexual frenzy of the crowd. Ignoring the glances of women and men,
she edged her way to the bar and flagged down one of the two bartenders who
shimmied and slipped around each other in the narrow aisle in a mad pantomime
of the dancers out on the floor.

“What’ll you have?” A sloe-eyed redhead in a
white open-collared shirt and tight black pants slid a cardboard coaster toward
her.

“Whatever dark brew you’ve got on tap,” Derian
said.

The pretty bartender nodded, pulled a draft,
and passed it across the bar. Derian pushed a twenty back, waved off the
change, and turned to survey the bacchanal. Bodies writhed on the dance floor,
heads bent close over small tables, and figures shifted stealthily in the
shadows, surreptitiously initiating the dance they would play out before the
evening ended.

Derian pointedly did not encourage the
appraising glances that came her way, avoiding eye contact, a slight nod, or a
tilt of her glass that would signal she was ready to play. She wasn’t
interested in a hookup. The impersonalness of casual sex with a stranger never
held much appeal—especially when sex was just a desperate attempt to ward off
loneliness. She’d rather replay the evening with Emily than settle for a poor
substitute. And she wouldn’t even be thinking about Emily if she hadn’t been so
damn tired and worried over Henrietta. She needed some sleep, not a few hours
of physical forgetfulness, and she’d be herself again.

She stayed long enough for a second beer and
when the alcohol finally seeped into her muscles and she knew she’d be able to
sleep, she headed out into the night alone. Fifteen minutes later she was back
in her apartment, stripping off her clothes by the side of the bed she hadn’t
slept in in three years. As she pulled back the covers and slipped nude
beneath, she thought back to the fleeting kiss she’d stolen from Emily.

She smiled to herself. Stolen kisses.
Something she hadn’t done since she was a teenager. She hadn’t had to steal
kisses after that. Willing women were always quite willing to give them. The
unanticipated desire for Emily’s was as fresh and innocent as anything she’d
experienced during those first youthful couplings, and that realization was as
troubling as it was impossible to forget.

*

“How much is that?” Emily asked when the
cabbie double-parked in front of her apartment building.

“The other miss took care of it,” the driver
said, turning in his seat with a wide smile. “Very generous.”

“Oh, thank you, then.” Of course Derian had
taken care of it. Derian was obviously very used to looking after women. Her
confidence and easy way of taking control did not strike Emily as overbearing,
but merely customary. And, she had to admit as she fit her key into the foyer
door and made her way up to her apartment, she’d enjoyed being pampered.

She’d grown up wanting for nothing—she’d gone
to good schools, had all the clothes she’d needed, had the advantages of her
father’s station and her family’s position, and never given much thought to her
wants. As a child and young teen, her needs had always been met. Life had
changed after the accident, but then she’d been too focused on what she must do
to be concerned about luxuries, physical or otherwise. All she’d wanted was to
succeed. She was doing that. She wasn’t there yet—she still had goals, things
she wanted to accomplish at the agency. And she was still far from securing
Pam’s future.

She was so used to every day being another
step toward achieving all that, the evening with Derian had unexpectedly
awakened her appreciation for things she had put aside. Simple things like
enjoying a woman’s attention—and Derian was a master at that. She had friends
she talked with, socialized with, but none of them gazed at her with the
intense focus that Derian had all evening. Derian’s attention was so absolute,
Emily could easily have believed she was the only thing in Derian’s world that
mattered. For a few hours, she’d let herself enjoy the feeling, knowing all the
while it couldn’t be true.

She laughed at her silliness as she put her
coat away and headed straight for the bathroom and a shower. As enjoyable as
the evening with Derian had been, it wasn’t likely to be repeated. Once
Henrietta was on the mend, Derian would disappear, returning to a life so far
from Emily’s as to be unimaginable. Constantly traveling, searching for the
next excitement—the next exciting woman. Emily was definitely not one of those.
The most excitement she usually ran into during the course of a day was a
fascinating new manuscript culled from the slush pile.

When she closed her eyes to lather her hair,
an image of Derian’s face formed beneath her eyelids. Deep gaze boring into
hers, drawing closer and closer until soft heat glided across her mouth. The kiss.
Eyes still closed, steam rising around her, enclosing her in a warm cloud, she
let herself drift on the memory for just a few more minutes. Fingertips to her
lips, she could still feel the electricity. She’d never in her life been kissed
when she hadn’t expected it, when she hadn’t somehow known it was coming. When
she’d spent an evening with someone whose company she enjoyed, who she found
attractive and knew was attracted to her, a kiss had been the next logical
step, or the last. Usually the last. Some had gone further than that. She
wasn’t a nun, after all. But truthfully, the few pleasant hours in bed hadn’t
been enough to drive her to repeat the encounters. She knew herself too well to
think she could have a sexual relationship with someone merely for the sake of
the physical, and she hadn’t felt anything deep enough to offer anything else.
She would never misrepresent herself to anyone. To her, lies were about far
more than spoken words. Actions were truth.

She stepped out into the small mist-filled
room, leaving only the light in the shower on. She wrapped a towel around her
hair and dried off with another, deciding the evening was a moment out of time
for both her and Derian. They both loved Henrietta, and her illness had shaken
them. Their shared affection was a bond that had drawn them together in a
moment of fear and uncertainty. Derian was fascinating, but
she
was anything but.
She couldn’t imagine a single reason why Derian would seek her out again.

As she slipped into bed, she accepted the evening
for what it had been, a fleeting intersection of very different lives, not to
be repeated. As she turned on her side and drew the covers around her, she
pressed her fingers to her lips again. The memory of the kiss remained.

Heart pounding, Derian grabbed her phone off the
nightstand before the second ring. “Winfield.”

“Still up before the sun, I see,” Aud said.
“Or have you not been to bed?”

Derian’s breath shot out on a curse. “I
thought it was the hospital.”

“Oh my God.” Aud sounded crushed. “Derian, I
am so sorry. I didn’t think—”

“No, that’s okay.” Derian rubbed her face,
glanced at the time. 5:30 a.m. “I was lying here awake. You’re right about
that.”

“I just thought I’d try to catch you before
the day got away from us. Really, I’m an idiot.”

“No comment, Counselor.”

“Can I make it up to you over breakfast?
That’s actually why I was calling. It’s been a long time.”

“There was Rio,” Derian pointed out.

“Yes, and that was nine months ago. And I
think we had about as much time together then as we had last night. I seem to
remember your attention was on a redhead, or was it the brunette with the
tattoo on her—”

“Breakfast would be good.” Aud had a way of
making her affairs with women seem like they were dalliances with
other
women, when there
was no
us
to
consider in the first place. She couldn’t cheat on a best friend, could she?
She didn’t think so, but Aud appeared to disagree. Ordinarily she didn’t mind,
but today she was too beat to find the implied criticism just friendly teasing.
They were both responsible for the distance between them, and her involvement
with other women was not the cause. Hell, Aud hadn’t likely been sitting alone
in her Madison Avenue penthouse pining for company these last five years. “I’ll
meet you. Half an hour?”

“Good. Lindy’s?”

Derian smiled wryly. Aud was determined to
keep the past alive. She couldn’t count the number of breakfasts they’d shared
in the late hours of the night at Lindy’s, when they were young and still best
of friends. “Sure. Why not.”

“I’ll get us a booth.”

Aud disconnected and Derian headed for
another shower. Her head was muzzy and her stomach queasy. Four hours’ sleep
was usually enough to recharge her batteries, but the transatlantic flight, the
stress, and too little real sleep punctuated with restless dreams had her
running on empty. She didn’t often dream, and never dreams like these. Dreams
filled with amorphous faces and a seething sexual unrest that left her agitated
and unsatisfied. She flipped the shower dial to hot, waited for the steam to
rise, and left the lights off in the bathroom, preferring a few more minutes of
dark solitude before the day intruded. The heat brought blood rushing to the
surface of her skin, and as her flesh awakened, the persistent tension between
her thighs accelerated. The drumbeat of insistent desire was not to be denied.
She slid one hand down the slick surface of her abdomen, caught the taut
pulsing heat between her fingers, and squeezed. Her breath caught, her vision
swam, and a spring coiled deep inside. A low moan escaped.

She stroked and tugged, her pulse pounding
loud in her ears, her abdomen hard and tight. A fist of pressure clenched and
spread.

Yes.
The soft pull of a warm mouth enclosed her. She shuddered.
Just like that.
She
rocked, clasped the neck of the woman kneeling between her thighs, slid her
fingers into long silky strands of dark wet hair, drawing the pale face closer,
the relentless mouth nearer. Muscles flexing, hips lifting, pushing, thrusting,
moaning, she strained for the connection, for the ultimate union.

Yes.
Close.
Pleasure spiked, pierced her center. Eyes squeezed shut, she
clawed toward the peak. Breathless, lungs burning, loins aching. She had to,
had to, had to…
Don’t
stop. Don’t stop.

Behind closed lids, she saw herself looking
down, met the eyes of the woman looking back, watched the glint of triumph when
the soft circle of lips drew her in, pushed her over.
Yes. Yes! You’ll make me come.