Women With Handcuffs Read online

  I let my kiss answer her unspoken question. I knew how she felt. After all these weeks of vacillating between belief and disbelief, strength and weakness, between calm assurances and horrible despair, I needed her, the indisputable, solid proof that she was real, beneath my hands, against my flesh, more than I needed air to breathe.

  Once upstairs I turned on the bedside lamp, disrobed and slid between the sheets while Patrice dealt with her service revolver and clothes. And then she was beside me and nothing else—not the horrible things that had happened this night or whatever was to come tomorrow—mattered. I shivered when she stroked my neck, when her fingers trailed across my collarbone and down over the swell of my breast, tracing my contours, circling my nipple and teasing it to hardness.

  “You know what I kept thinking?” She frowned, leaning in to press a kiss between my breasts. “That it couldn’t be my time, because I haven’t loved you enough yet.”

  “Oh, Patrice,” I murmured, framing her face with my hands and drawing her up to look in my eyes, “there’s no such thing as enough.” I kissed her tiny frown lines. “I will spend the rest of my life loving you, and it still won’t be enough.”

  She kissed me with a groan, sliding her tongue into my mouth as she moved, settling her hips between my legs, bracing herself on her forearms above me. I loved the weight of her, the heat of our bodies pressed together, the sublime feel of her breasts crushed against mine. I wanted to spend all night loving her, slowly and thoroughly, but the feel of her fevered skin on mine was sending me up in flames, all the anguish and desperation I’d felt when she’d left earlier burning away like so many logs on the fire. My restless hands roamed her back and lower, skimmed across her ass, pulled her deeper into the cradle of my hips.

  Patrice’s mouth blazed a trail from my mouth to my neck and down to my breasts, drew first one and then the other into the warm heat of her mouth, lavished each with equal attention. I moaned my pleasure, delved my hands into her rich dark hair, pressed her closer still. Her teeth grazed the aching peak of one nipple while she teased the other into rigidity between her thumb and forefinger.

  “Patrice, I…please…” I didn’t know what I was asking for, but it wasn’t enough, I needed more. Patrice bit down on the nipple held captive in her mouth and pinched the other until I gasped, then eased the tiny hurts with a soft stroke of her tongue before moving lower, trailing open-mouthed kisses down my belly, across my hip, over the soft skin of my inner thigh.

  She stroked the heat that greeted her, teasing the moisture there before retreating, spreading my lips apart to reveal flesh swollen with need. She inhaled my arousal, tasted it, ran her tongue along my length before moving forward to tease my clit. A tremor took hold deep inside me, and my fingers crept back into her hair.

  “Oh, yes, baby…” I breathed, and Patrice groaned in response, no teasing now, her own need rising as she buried her face in my folds, feasting on the arousal that met her, thrusting her tongue into my wetness, devouring me with a hunger equal to my own. She turned her attention to my clit, circling the hardness with her tongue and nipping the sensitive tissue before settling into a rhythm, urged on by the pressure of my hands on her head and the increasing volume of my moans. I rode the waves of pleasure with Patrice my only anchor, my world reduced to her mouth and the divine feel of her tongue. But still I needed more, my muscles tensing and my grip on Patrice tightening as tension coiled in my belly.

  “Please, Patrice…” I begged, “I need you inside me…” I needed so much more than that. I needed her buried so deeply that I could never lose her; that she would become an indelible part of me, burned into my flesh.

  “I’m here, chère,” she whispered, stealing my next breath with her kiss, one leg sliding over mine while her hand trailed down my abdomen. Her fingers brushed through my damp curls, and then she was thrusting into me, filling my emptiness, easing the ache inside me as only she could. I could feel her slick arousal on my thigh, her hips rocking against me in time with her thrusts, driven by the need that consumed her.

  “Yes, baby…that’s it.” I urged her on, pushed my hips upward, forced her to the edge. Patrice moaned, her clit crushed against me, thrusting into me and against me with a passion that bordered on violence until we both cried out, rocked by the intensity of the release that crashed over us, clinging to each other until the tremors subsided.

  I stroked her hair tenderly. We had weathered this storm. And no matter what lay ahead, I knew we would prevail over any uncertainty.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, searching her eyes for the truth.

  “How could I be otherwise?” She smiled tenderly. “I’m with you—my wife, my sun, the center of my universe.”

  CHARITY AND SPLENDOR

  Andrea Dale

  I was elbow deep in soapy dishwater when my eleven-year-old daughter Ashley came into the kitchen, her blue eyes brimming with unshed tears.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” I grabbed a cobalt-and-white striped dishtowel to dry my hands.

  “Mom,” she said, “it’s about the dogs.”

  I sighed. She’d wanted a dog for a while, but between her school and activities, and my work, we didn’t have enough time for one.

  Before I could say anything, she went on. “The police dogs. They don’t have enough money for bulletproof vests for them, and one of them got shot recently.”

  “Oh, honey.” I pulled her in close. Ashley had a bleeding heart when it came to animals; I knew this was killing her. Her voice muffled, she went on to tell me that the K-9 dog had, in fact, survived surgery, but wasn’t there anything we could do?

  “We could donate some money,” I offered. The coffers were tight, but not so much that we couldn’t occasionally give a little. It was something I’d tried to instill in Ashley, like donating the toys she no longer played with to a women’s shelter.

  “It’s not enough,” she said, pulling away from me, her voice now as strident and fierce as a preteen’s could be. The tears lingered on her lashes, but they framed eyes filled with resolve. “The vests are seriously expensive—way too much for just us. Can we do a fund-raiser or something? Get lots of people involved?”

  Kids. They’ll break your heart with their wonderfulness.

  We enlisted the help of her teacher, Mr. Schindling, and the other dog-crazy girls in her class. The girls brainstormed ways to make money, came up with a logo, brought the enthusiasm. I agreed to handle the aspects the girls couldn’t: opening a PayPal account, for example, and sending a press release to the local paper.

  But all that was after I called the police department and set up an appointment for Ashley and me to meet with the head of the K-9 unit.

  “Rosa Mendez,” she said, holding out her hand.

  “Monica Westberg.”

  We shook briefly, and then she led us to a small office.

  She had that cop demeanor, not quite militaristic, but still with squared shoulders, a no-nonsense expression and clipped speech. It’s not that she was unfriendly—hey, even the cops that had pulled me over once (okay, maybe twice) for speeding had been polite when they’d handed me my ticket—but she was businesslike to the extreme. Just a quick smile for Ashley.

  Everything changed, though, when I let Ashley explain why we were there.

  It was the smile that did me in. The astonished grin that blossomed across her face, the dimple on the left side, the flash of light in her dark eyes. “Are you serious?” she said.

  “Absolutely,” I said. “Of course, we won’t do anything without the full support of the department.”

  “We’d be insane not to,” Rosa said. “Ashley, you are an extraordinary young woman.”

  Ashley blushed and ducked her head, and I liked Rosa even more.

  We talked about getting some information and materials from her about the K-9 program, and then Rosa asked if we’d like to meet Duke, the dog who’d been shot.

  I thought Ashley was going to vibrate out of her anime hoodie at the very
prospect.

  Duke was hanging out with the other dogs who weren’t out on patrol with their handlers, although Duke had a private enclosure since he was recovering. His tail started wagging as soon as he saw Rosa, and if she’d had a tail, it would’ve wagged, too.

  She talked about Duke with deep affection, and I heard her voice quaver once before she cleared her throat and mentioned the surgery he’d gone through. She kept the details fuzzy for Ashley’s sake.

  And all the while I was thinking, dammit, I have the worst timing when it comes to crushes.

  Well, this was going to be awkward.

  The first time Rosa came to the house with materials for Pause for the Paws Cause, I was ridiculously nervous. I didn’t have time to both deep clean the house and go all out primping myself, and for the first time in ages, I chose myself. The house wasn’t in bad shape, or so I told myself as an excuse.

  Finally I settled on a way-too-expensive pair of jeans I’d splurged on (because they really did hide a multitude of flaws) and a purple sweater that showed a little cleavage.

  I wanted to believe Rosa had been thinking along the same lines. She wore a flowered top, all muted mauves and washedsilk greens, and a green, flowing, silk skirt that flipped out at the ends just about the knee. I guess, having only seen her in uniform, I hadn’t expected that. Now all I could wonder is whether, under her uniform and right now, she wore delicate lacy underthings.

  Yes, boys, even girls think that way.

  Rosa complimented me on the house and moved around the living room to look at the family photos. Most were of Ashley and me, but I did have one out with Jane.

  “So,” she said finally, “I take it there’s no Mr. Westberg?”

  “There never was,” I said. “My partner and I chose to have Ashley—I carried her—but Jane died when Ashley was two. Ashley doesn’t really remember her.”

  I wanted to watch Rosa’s face when I said it, to see her reaction, but I also didn’t want to. I was reasonably confident I wouldn’t see a negative reaction, but I didn’t want to see politeness, distance, or pity.

  When I was in my twenties, it was easier to find a like-minded woman. There were bars, clubs, friends-of-friends. Now, in my early forties, I had a daughter and a career, and no time for a wild nightlife. I had friends, but they didn’t have many single friends. And I was picky about who I’d let get close because of Ashley.

  Not that I was overthinking any of this, of course.

  “I’m sorry about your partner,” Rosa said, her voice soft. “That must have been very hard.”

  “We had some wonderful times together,” I said. “And I’m glad for Ashley. I might not have gotten pregnant if Jane and I hadn’t been together.”

  “She’s an amazing girl,” Rosa agreed, and again I liked what the warm smile did to her face, to her big brown eyes. “You’ve done a great job with her.”

  “Sometimes I think I’ve just been lucky,” I said.

  Rosa shook her head, serious again. “No,” she said. “I’ve seen all types of people, Monica, and sure, occasionally someone can dig their way out of a bad family. But almost always, it’s the support of the parents that influences how kids turn out.”

  “Well, then, thank you,” I said, just in time for Ashley to come bounding into the room, burbling with questions about how Duke was doing.

  We worked closely together over the next couple of months—oh, sure, with Ashley and Mr. Schindling and the rest of the girls. But I was certain it wasn’t my imagination that Rosa found excuses to call or stop by, hand-delivering photos for the website instead of emailing them to me.

  I wasn’t above texting her to update her on a new donation or fund-raising idea, either.

  Were we flirting? I thought so. I hoped so. It had just been a long time since I’d engaged in any sort of courtship behavior, and so often Ashley was around…

  Then one night Ashley was staying over at a friend’s, and Rosa brought Duke (who curled up on a corner and didn’t knock anything over like he had last time), take-out and a bottle of wine. We filled our plates with Chinese and curled up on the sofa across from each other. She preferred a fork, and I appreciated it, having never been adept with chopsticks myself. We joked about that, chatted about our day, about nothing and everything.

  Once we’d finished, we drew chairs up to the computer so we could go over the latest flyer before it was printed. I opened the email account we’d set up for the fund-raising project, and gasped.

  “What is it?” she asked, leaning so close I could smell her shampoo, something clean and fresh.

  I pointed at the message from a local engineering firm. “Mes-Tech says they’ll match all non-business donations! That’ll more than double what we’ve brought in!”

  The community had already come out to support Pause for the Paws Cause, and we’d made a nice chunk of change. The funds matching brought it into the realm of hot-damn amazing.

  Rosa shrieked with joy, throwing her arms around me. I returned the hug, thrilled both by the news and by the feel of her arms around me.

  That’s when everything shifted. One moment a friendly celebratory hug, and the next we both seemed to realize simultaneously how close our faces were to each other. I couldn’t say, then or later, who kissed who first. There was a mutual hesitation, and then we both decided the same thing at the same time.

  She tasted like chablis, and her lips were soft against mine. We were tentative, exploring, and that was fine. It wasn’t about passion, not yet. It was about introduction and discovery.

  We both leaned back, stared at each other and started talking at once.

  “I hope that was okay—”

  “I wasn’t sure if you—”

  We laughed. “You first,” she said.

  I took a deep breath. Where to begin? I felt like a fumbling teenager again, giddy and terrified and awkward in equal measure.

  “I haven’t done this in a while,” I said.

  “From my end, I can say you were doing just fine,” she said in a purr that started a slow, delicious heat roiling in my belly.

  “I meant dating,” I said. “But yeah, it’s been a while for that, too.”

  Her arm was still around me; she gently stroked my back. “I understand,” she said. “No pressure.”

  We’d already talked about how I wasn’t going to bring anybody home until I was sure where things were going, because that wasn’t fair to Ashley.

  “Well,” I said, “on the plus side, Ashley already knows you and likes you.”

  “I like her, too,” Rosa said. “But right now, I’m liking you a lot more.”

  If it didn’t work out with Rosa, I rationalized, it wouldn’t be a huge hiccup in our family life. We had only a month left on the fund-raising campaign; she’d have eased out of lives by then anyway.

  I suppose in other circumstances we’d have taken it slow. But we’d already been taking it slow, dancing around our mutual desire for so long I thought I was going to lose my mind. To find out it was mutual had tripped a switch in my brain.

  “Good thing,” I said. “Because she won’t be home ’til tomorrow afternoon, so I’m all you’ve got.”

  Rosa did, I discovered to my delight, indeed have a penchant for skimpy, lacy underthings. When I confessed my fantasies about that, she chuckled.

  “Ever since I met you, I’ve gotten dressed each day wondering whether you’d like this set or that one,” she said.

  “So far, I approve,” I said.

  The demi-cup bra cradled her small, round breasts, the cherryred color a perfect shade against her dusky skin. The matching panties had faux lacing up the front, the ribbon tied in a jaunty bow. I’d get to that.

  For now I fastened my mouth onto the nipple that pressed insistently against her bra and suckled her through the lace. She arched her back, murmuring something in Spanish. I didn’t know what it was, but it sounded incredibly seductive. I pushed the lace aside, wanting to feel and taste her flesh, wanting to hea
r her murmurs and cries and moans.

  I grazed her collarbone with my teeth, worked my way down her body. She was strong from her regular workouts but soft in all the right places. I tugged at the ribbon on her panties with my teeth, too, making her laugh and squirm.

  Her panties were already damp, and I breathed in the spicy scent of her. “Monica,” she whispered, her hands moving restlessly on the sheets.

  I eased the panties down her legs, darted my tongue into her folds. It had been a long time, yes, but I hadn’t forgotten the joy of urging another woman to orgasm: the joy of discovering what she liked, what made her cry out, what made her come.

  Rosa squirmed, tensed, sobbed out my name as she pulsed and clenched around my fingers deep inside her, and a tiny tremor echoed in my own pussy.

  Then she was sliding down, urging me onto my back, kissing her juices on my lips as I ground my crotch into her knee, then following a similar path down my body to the one I’d taken down hers. It might have been my turn to cry out her name, but I’m never that coherent. I whispered it afterwards, into her hair, as we cuddled.

  I thought about getting up and retrieving the wine bottle and glasses, but when I rolled over, I discovered Duke in the bedroom doorway, his head cocked as he regarded us.

  “That’s…disconcerting,” I said.

  “You get used to it,” Rosa said, and proceeded to distract me.

  Even after Pause for the Paws Cause wrapped, we kept seeing each other, and we talked about a lot of things. The danger her job put her in and the sometimes strange hours. The difficulty of integrating a new person into a family unit. The fact that she was seven years younger than me.

  In the end, though, there was no question how we felt about each other and what we wanted for the future.

  We sat Ashley down at the kitchen table. My mouth was dry. How would she handle this? What if she didn’t come to love Rosa the way I did?