First Sight Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  Acclaim for Radclyffe’s Fiction

  Applause for L.L. Raand’s Midnight Hunters Series

  By Radclyffe

  First Sight

  About the Author

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

  First Sight

  An artist, a model, a secret unspoken. Strangers, roommates, a passion revealed in silent glances. Two women share an erotic night after class is dismissed and the true lesson begins.

  Previously published in First-Timers: True Stories of Lesbian Awakenings, ed. Rachel Kramer Bussel (Alyson Publications, 2006); republished in Radical Encounters (Bold Strokes Books, 2009).

  Acclaim for Radclyffe’s Fiction

  Secret Hearts “delivers exactly what it says on the tin: poignant story, sweet romance, great characters, chemistry and hot sex scenes. Radclyffe knows how to pen a good lesbian romance.”—LezReviewBooks Blog

  Wild Shores “will hook you early. Radclyffe weaves a chance encounter into all-out steamy romance. These strong, dynamic women have great conversations, and fantastic chemistry.”—The Romantic Reader Blog

  In 2016 RWA/OCC Book Buyers Best award winner for suspense and mystery with romantic elements Price of Honor “Radclyffe is master of the action-thriller series…The old familiar characters are there, but enough new blood is introduced to give it a fresh feel and open new avenues for intrigue.”—Curve Magazine

  In Prescription for Love “Radclyffe populates her small town with colorful characters, among the most memorable being Flann’s little sister, Margie, and Abby’s 15-year-old trans son, Blake…This romantic drama has plenty of heart and soul.”—Publishers Weekly

  2013 RWA/New England Bean Pot award winner for contemporary romance Crossroads “will draw the reader in and make her heart ache, willing the two main characters to find love and a life together. It’s a story that lingers long after coming to ‘the end.’”—Lambda Literary

  In 2012 RWA/FTHRW Lories and RWA HODRW Aspen Gold award winner Firestorm “Radclyffe brings another hot lesbian romance for her readers.”—The Lesbrary

  Foreword Review Book of the Year finalist and IPPY silver medalist Trauma Alert “is hard to put down and it will sizzle in the reader’s hands. The characters are hot, the sex scenes explicit and explosive, and the book is moved along by an interesting plot with well drawn secondary characters. The real star of this show is the attraction between the two characters, both of whom resist and then fall head over heels.”—Lambda Literary Reviews

  Lambda Literary Award Finalist Best Lesbian Romance 2010 features “stories [that] are diverse in tone, style, and subject, making for more variety than in many, similar anthologies…well written, each containing a satisfying, surprising twist. Best Lesbian Romance series editor Radclyffe has assembled a respectable crop of 17 authors for this year’s offering.”—Curve Magazine

  2010 Prism award winner and ForeWord Review Book of the Year Award finalist Secrets in the Stone is “so powerfully [written] that the worlds of these three women shimmer between reality and dreams…A strong, must read novel that will linger in the minds of readers long after the last page is turned.”—Just About Write

  In Benjamin Franklin Award finalist Desire by Starlight “Radclyffe writes romance with such heart and her down-to-earth characters not only come to life but leap off the page until you feel like you know them. What Jenna and Gard feel for each other is not only a spark but an inferno and, as a reader, you will be washed away in this tumultuous romance until you can do nothing but succumb to it.”—Queer Magazine Online

  Lambda Literary Award winner Stolen Moments “is a collection of steamy stories about women who just couldn’t wait. It’s sex when desire overrides reason, and it’s incredibly hot!”—On Our Backs

  Lambda Literary Award winner Distant Shores, Silent Thunder “weaves an intricate tapestry about passion and commitment between lovers. The story explores the fragile nature of trust and the sanctuary provided by loving relationships.”—Sapphic Reader

  Lambda Literary Award Finalist Justice Served delivers a “crisply written, fast-paced story with twists and turns and keeps us guessing until the final explosive ending.”—Independent Gay Writer

  Lambda Literary Award finalist Turn Back Time “is filled with wonderful love scenes, which are both tender and hot.”—MegaScene

  Applause for L.L. Raand’s Midnight Hunters Series

  The Midnight Hunt

  RWA 2012 VCRW Laurel Wreath winner Blood Hunt

  Night Hunt

  The Lone Hunt

  “Raand has built a complex world inhabited by werewolves, vampires, and other paranormal beings…Raand has given her readers a complex plot filled with wonderful characters as well as insight into the hierarchy of Sylvan’s pack and vampire clans. There are many plot twists and turns, as well as erotic sex scenes in this riveting novel that keep the pages flying until its satisfying conclusion.”—Just About Write

  “Once again, I am amazed at the storytelling ability of L.L. Raand aka Radclyffe. In Blood Hunt, she mixes high levels of sheer eroticism that will leave you squirming in your seat with an impeccable multi-character storyline all streaming together to form one great read.”—Queer Magazine Online

  “The Midnight Hunt has a gripping story to tell, and while there are also some truly erotic sex scenes, the story always takes precedence. This is a great read which is not easily put down nor easily forgotten.”—Just About Write

  “Are you sick of the same old hetero vampire/werewolf story plastered in every bookstore and at every movie theater? Well, I’ve got the cure to your werewolf fever. The Midnight Hunt is first in, what I hope is, a long-running series of fantasy erotica for L.L. Raand (aka Radclyffe).”—Queer Magazine Online

  “Any reader familiar with Radclyffe’s writing will recognize the author’s style within The Midnight Hunt, yet at the same time it is most definitely a new direction. The author delivers an excellent story here, one that is engrossing from the very beginning. Raand has pieced together an intricate world, and provided just enough details for the reader to become enmeshed in the new world. The action moves quickly throughout the book and it’s hard to put down.”—Three Dollar Bill Reviews

  First Sight

  Brought to you by

  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  First Sight

  © 2006 By Radclyffe. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13:978-1-63555-226-3

  This Electronic Original is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, NY 12185

  First Bold Strokes Books eBook Edition: December 2017

  Published in First Timers, (Cleis Press, 2006) and Radical Encounters, (Bold Strokes Books, 2009).

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editors: Ruth Sternglantz and Stacia Seaman

  Production Design: Bold Strokes Graphics

  Cover Design by Sheri ([email protected])

  By Radclyffe

  Romances

  Innocent Hearts

  Promising Hearts

  Love’s Melody Lost

  L
ove’s Tender Warriors

  Tomorrow’s Promise

  Love’s Masquerade

  shadowland

  Passion’s Bright Fury

  Fated Love

  Turn Back Time

  When Dreams Tremble

  The Lonely Hearts Club

  Night Call

  Secrets in the Stone

  Desire by Starlight

  Crossroads

  Homestead

  The Color of Love

  Secret Hearts

  The Provincetown Tales

  Safe Harbor

  Beyond the Breakwater

  Distant Shores, Silent Thunder

  Storms of Change

  Winds of Fortune

  Returning Tides

  Sheltering Dunes

  Honor Series

  Above All, Honor

  Honor Bound

  Love & Honor

  Honor Guards

  Honor Reclaimed

  Honor Under Siege

  Word of Honor

  Code of Honor

  Price of Honor

  Justice Series

  A Matter of Trust (prequel)

  Shield of Justice

  In Pursuit of Justice

  Justice in the Shadows

  Justice Served

  Justice For All

  Rivers Community Novels

  Against Doctor’s Orders

  Prescription for Love

  Love on Call

  Love After Hours

  First Responders Novels

  Trauma Alert

  Firestorm

  Oath of Honor

  Taking Fire

  Wild Shores

  Heart Stop

  Short Fiction

  Collected Stories by Radclyffe

  Erotic Interludes: Change of Pace

  Radical Encounters

  Edited by Radclyffe:

  Best Lesbian Romance 2009-2014

  Stacia Seaman and Radclyffe, eds.

  Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments

  Erotic Interludes 3: Lessons in Love

  Erotic Interludes 4: Extreme Passions

  Erotic Interludes 5: Road Games

  Romantic Interludes 1: Discovery

  Romantic Interludes 2: Secrets

  Breathless: Tales of Celebration

  Women of the Dark Streets

  Amore and More: Love Everafter

  Myth & Magic: Queer Fairy Tales

  By L.L. Raand

  Midnight Hunters

  The Midnight Hunt

  Blood Hunt

  Night Hunt

  The Lone Hunt

  The Magic Hunt

  Shadow Hunt

  First Sight

  Three pairs of eyes probed my naked flesh. Hers were remote—blank discs of impenetrable blue, so impersonal as to leave a chill in their wake. His were clinically appraising—studying me with curious neutrality, making me wonder if my heart still beat.

  Only your eyes were alive—slow-dancing over the hills and valleys of my body, dipping into my secret places with unfettered abandon. The satin-covered marble beneath my thighs was slick and unforgiving. If I moved at all, every fragile dream would be exposed.

  “Uh…we need a model…for the special class I take at night…to pose,” you said, looking past me out the window to the quadrangle far below. “Nude.”

  I laughed. We’d been roommates for eight months, and you were still shy with me. I suppose it was because when we all showed up for the fall semester and got our room assignments, there’d been whispers about you. Lesbian, they’d said. Carefully polite, but with just that little hint of prurient excitement. Sure, everyone seemed cool about it, but you must have known that everyone was just waiting to see who would be in the bed across from yours, ten feet away, for the next nine months.

  I sensed the others stare at me when first your name, then mine, was called. But I was watching you. Your eyes darted to my face and then away, and then cautiously back again. I was still looking at you when you finally searched my eyes for the answer. The uncertainty in your expression made me want to hold you, and I’d never felt that way about anyone before. I wanted to say, “I don’t care what they say. I don’t care who you love. Just don’t look so scared.” But I didn’t know if the words would hurt more than help, so I said nothing. But I smiled, and that must’ve been all right, because you smiled back.

  “Nude, huh?”

  You nodded silently.

  “Sure, I’ll do it.”

  “Bend your knee up, please,” the faintly accented voice of the instructor requested from just beyond my field of vision. “Very nice. Open just a little…yes, just like that. Perfect.”

  It was my fourth session, but only the first time I could see you clearly as you worked. I’d been aware of you before, sitting expectantly with charcoal in hand as I removed the white robe and let it drop behind me before settling onto the dais. The room was always very quiet as I bared myself, but the very first time, I imagined I heard a small hitch in your breath. You were careful not to look at me then, at least not until I could not see you.

  You were always so careful around me. Careful not to walk in while I was changing. Careful to keep your eyes on the ceiling while we lay naked in our respective beds, talking late into the night or delaying the moment in the morning when we would have to separate. Careful not to ask me about the dates I went on, when I returned to find you still awake, sitting cross-legged on your bed with a book in front of you that I was certain you had not been reading.

  I was careful too. Careful not to tell you that I’d rather stay at home with you, laughing about our day, or bitching about our classes, or confessing what we thought about and dreamed about and hoped for in our futures. I was careful around you the way I never was around the other girls, because I understood that you weren’t like the other girls. And to treat you as if you were would have been cruel, as if I didn’t know you at all. I didn’t tell you I was a virgin, and I don’t know why. I guess because you weren’t like the other girls, and I liked that.

  I liked that a lot, and sometimes, sometimes I wished that you would look at me as if I weren’t like the other girls, either.

  Once I became “the model,” a breathing still-life, I couldn’t watch you any longer. I was a prisoner, unbound but restrained nonetheless. I could not turn my head to see if the heat I felt building inside was the result of your charcoal tracing the line of my skin on your paper. And always, when I was finally released from my invisible bondage, you had already risen, hurriedly packing your things with a downcast gaze, rushing to leave. I was forced to walk home beside you as if I had not just spent an hour with the promise of your hands upon my body. We never talked about it, and you were so careful not to look at me.

  Not so tonight. Tonight your eyes were everywhere.

  Tonight, you’d shifted your easel to a new spot. I could look at your face, and you, it seemed, could look directly into my soul. You sat upon a stool, a rectangle of canvas propped upon wide-spread wooden legs the only barrier between us. Your face was unmasked, your emotions as exposed to me as my body was to you. Your hands moved out of sight, sliding over my breasts, down my belly, between my legs, with swift sure strokes. Your eyes, wide and dark and unknowingly hungry, swept over my body in the wake of your touch with far less restraint, grazing my nipples to hardness and teasing my inner thighs to a soft sheen of welcome. To everyone else I was a profile, an abstraction, a study in light and shadow. To you alone, I bled and breathed and quickened.

  You did not know what your expression revealed, and I did not disclose what I saw, lest you hide your passion and your desire. Thus we sat, souls on display, pretending we were blind.

  “Thank you, that will be all for tonight.”

  I read the disappointment in your face, felt the loss of our connection immediately. You did not, as you usually do, immediately begin to gather your charcoals and pencils. I rose slowly while the others prepared to leave. Within minutes, we were alone.
I held the robe before me but did not yet put it on.

  “You’re not finished, are you?” I said at last.

  You gave a start, as if surprised that I had spoken. Then you blushed.

  “No.” You indicated the canvas with a sweep of your hand, your voice laden with frustration. “Tonight was the first time I felt like I might capture some part of…you.”

  “Why tonight?” Although I knew.

  You looked up from the image of me and into my eyes. “Because tonight was the first time I let you see me. Before tonight, you’ve been the only one brave enough to do that.”

  “All the other nights,” I whispered as I moved closer, “you looked at me, but tonight, you touched me.”

  You nodded and I saw you shiver. Your voice when you spoke was urgent and low. “I could feel you lead my hands over your body, guiding me, teaching me.” You held my gaze so desperately, your longing so open and pure, I ached. “I was almost there.”

  In the distance, I heard a door close as the others left. I let the robe fall, a ribbon of white gathering between us on the dark floor. “I want you to finish.”

  You stared for an instant, a soft groan escaping from somewhere deep inside, then you turned with outstretched hand toward your charcoal.