Breathless Read online

  Carly losing control snapped the last of Ray’s, and she fucked her faster. She sucked Carly’s clit into her mouth, flicking at the swollen flesh with the point of her tongue. Carly cried out, nonsense words, and dug her heel into Ray’s back, tightening around Ray’s fingers until she came hard.

  Within moments, Carly went from clutching Ray close to struggling away. “Stop, baby, I can’t take any more.”

  Ray left Carly with one last, loving lick, then drew back with a satisfied murmur. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Carly laughed shakily and propped herself up on her elbows.

  Ray smiled and reached behind Carly’s back, unhooking her bra. She slipped it off Carly’s shoulders and tossed it on top of the panties. Carly raised an eyebrow and sat up on the desk.

  “You were overdressed,” Ray said.

  Carly tugged at the hem of Ray’s shirt. “You’re the overdressed one.”

  With a self-assuredness she hadn’t possessed even eight months ago, Ray slowly eased her shirt over her head. Carly’s admiring stare lit a warm glow in the pit of Ray’s stomach, making it easy to perform a pseudo striptease while Carly watched with wide eyes.

  “Merry Christmas, indeed,” Carly said when Ray shed her panties.

  Standing naked in front of Carly, Ray was wholly comfortable in her own skin. The first time they’d slept together, the physical and emotional scars of Ray’s time in Iraq had made her powerfully self-conscious, but no longer. Carly made her feel like the most gorgeous—and powerful—woman in the world.

  Carly stood, took Ray into her arms, and kissed her languorously. She spun them around, still joined at the mouth, and backed Ray onto the desk so she sat on the edge. After a last flick at Ray’s mouth she nibbled a path down her throat to a painfully erect nipple.

  “Do I get to lick you now?” Carly asked, punctuating the question with a flick of her tongue against the tip of Ray’s breast. “Please?”

  Ray lay back and spread her legs. “You’d better.”

  Never one to take things slowly, Carly sat in her office chair, rolled forward, and licked Ray’s swollen pussy with the flat of her tongue. Ray cried out and gripped the edge of the desk, amazed by the way her thighs immediately began to quiver. Carly chuckled against her, sending pleasurable vibrations shooting into Ray’s abdomen and wrenching a breathy moan from her lips.

  Ray closed her eyes and tried her hardest not to come. It was never hard for Carly to bring her off, usually far more quickly than Ray wanted. This was her favorite thing in the world and Ray never wanted it to end. But tonight—with the lingerie and the incredible turn-on of fucking Carly in her office—she was already teetering on the edge of release. Sobbing at the fire pulsing in her pussy, Ray held Carly’s face against her and pumped her hips into her mouth. No matter how badly she wanted to make it last, she couldn’t help herself. It just felt too good.

  Carly’s hands crawled up her stomach and settled on her breasts. She seized Ray’s nipples in her fingers and pinched, twisting gently. And that was it—Ray couldn’t hold off her climax if her life depended on it. She tipped back her head and roared her release, then whimpered loudly when the sensation became too much for her to handle. Well attuned to her nonverbal cues, Carly immediately drew back and let Ray catch her breath.

  “No fair,” Ray gasped. “Too fast.”

  Carly kissed the inside of Ray’s thigh. “You think you’re done for the night?” She peered up at Ray with a devilish smirk. “No way, darling. That was just a warm-up.”

  Ray struggled to sit up, a Herculean task now that her muscles had turned to jelly. But she did, gripping Carly by the arms and pulling her to her feet. Ray hugged Carly tight, burying her face in the soft skin of her neck. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” Carly kissed Ray’s hair. “I vote for doing round two at home. In bed.”

  Ray tipped her head back and gave Carly a hopeful look. “Think you can handle my cock tonight?” One of Ray’s greatest discoveries of the previous year had been the wonder of strap-on sex. The very thought of getting Carly on her hands and knees in their bed flooded her with renewed energy.

  “Great minds.” Carly released Ray and picked up the clothing they had scattered across the floor. “Double-time, soldier.”

  Carly was so cute when she talked military. Getting dressed quickly—and with a smile on her face—Ray marveled at how Carly made her feel like a lovesick teenager again. Though there was nothing immature about her love for Carly, the feelings she stirred reminded Ray of the all-consuming, world-tilting intensity of adolescence. That was something she had thought she left behind in Iraq, a bone-deep joy she would never feel again. When she’d first come home, fresh from her months being held captive by insurgents, Ray was certain that the part of her life that allowed for love, sex, and happiness was over. That she would never be whole again. Meeting Carly had been a revelation in many ways, but the most shocking part was the realization that she had never actually been whole before now.

  “I love you,” Ray said again. Now fully dressed, she watched Carly button her shirt, already missing the touch of her bare skin. “I know I just said that, but…I really love you, Carly. And I’ll never stop.”

  Carly gave her a shy smile as she finished securing the last button. “You better not. ’Cause you’re stuck with me.”

  “Good.” Ray reached into the pocket of her pants, relieved she hadn’t lost the small box inside. “I have a for-real present for you now.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, trust me. What you did to me just now? Was definitely for real.”

  Ray’s chest swelled with pride. She extracted the box she had been carrying around all day and presented it to Carly. “For you.”

  Carly blinked, and when she looked up there were tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”

  Ray blushed. “You haven’t even seen it yet.”

  “I don’t have to.” Carly cradled the box. “I love it already.”

  “Open it.”

  Carly unwrapped the small box and cracked it open, lighting up when she saw what was inside. “Oh, Ray. It’s beautiful.” She pulled out the fourteen-carat gold necklace and the attached veterinary caduceus charm. “It’s perfect.” Carly turned her back to Ray, handing the necklace over her shoulder. “Would you help me put it on?”

  “I’d love to.” Ray opened the chain and placed it around Carly’s neck, then fastened the clasp. Before Carly could turn around again, Ray pressed a soft kiss to the top of her spine. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Yes, it is.” Carly swiveled and reached past Ray to open a desk drawer. She pulled out a red envelope and presented it to Ray with an excited bounce. “Here’s your for-real present. It’s not jewelry.”

  Ray laughed, shaking the envelope lightly. “Yeah, I guessed that. I’m not really the jewelry sort, anyway.”

  “I know.” Carly’s smile grew impossibly wider. “I hope you like it.”

  “I’m sure I will.” Ray tore open the envelope, curious what it could be. Inside was a card, and inside the card was… “A photo of a golden retriever puppy?”

  Carly’s bouncing intensified. “I really hope you’re up for it, and if you’re not, just tell me. But I spoke to Tanya at the Assistance Dog Institute, and she arranged for you to be a puppy raiser for the new class of service dogs.”

  Ray’s heart started pounding, a sensation she had become very used to over the past three years. But instead of terror or anxiety, it was pure excitement. For as much as she loved dogs, she had never had a puppy before. Knowing that she would be raising one that would one day be to someone else what Jagger was to her was truly phenomenal.

  Carly’s expression vacillated between elation and concern. “I can’t tell—did I just overstep or are you totally geeked?”

  “I’m totally geeked.” Ray threw her arms around Carly and squeezed hard. “That’s amazing, Carly. When do I get him?”

  “In three days?” Carly stepped out of their embrace, ch
ecking Ray’s face again. “I’ve got puppy supplies hidden in a closet here. So we’re all set as far as that goes. You just need to provide the love and discipline.”

  “For the puppy, too.”

  “Cute.”

  Ray waggled her eyebrows and grasped Carly’s hand. “Come on, let’s get home. All this excitement has me ready for round two. Which, I assure you, will contain plenty of love and discipline.”

  Carly wrapped an arm around Ray’s waist and snuggled close. “And to all, a good night.”

  Radclyffe has published over thirty-five romance and romantic intrigue novels as well as dozens of short stories, has edited numerous romance and erotica anthologies, and, writing as L.L. Raand, has authored a paranormal romance series, The Midnight Hunters.

  The characters in this story are featured in the 2010 Prism Award–winning novel Secrets in the Stone and the 2007 Lambda Literary finalist When Dreams Tremble.

  Ice Castles

  Radclyffe

  Dev Weber hitched the bright yellow, braided nylon tow rope over her shoulder and trudged down the snowy embankment, dragging her loaded skid behind her. The glaring early-December sunlight did little to cut the biting chill of the icy wind that whipped across the frozen lake. Thirty-six miles long and several miles wide in places, Lake George was her laboratory. On days like today the lake felt more like her battlefield, and she was pretty sure she was losing. A quarter of a mile away, the tall, thin outline of her research shack appeared like a matchstick in a snaggle-toothed matchbook, surrounded by other shacks—some no more than four or five feet square—that dotted the frozen surface. Unlike the men and women who sat out the frigid weather inside the tiny shacks, dropping lines through holes in the ice with endless optimism, she wasn’t out to catch fish. She was studying them. That was her business, and the work didn’t stop just because her laboratory froze. Sun or rain, wind or snow, it didn’t matter. The fish still migrated, fed, spawned, and died. And by tracking their movements and lifecycles, analyzing the water that nourished and sometimes poisoned them, she could draw conclusions about the impact of industrial effluent on the health of not only the waterway, but the environment and ultimately, its human inhabitants.

  Winter was a dichotomous season. At once barren and lonely, and incredibly beautiful and awe-inspiring. Ice crystals sparkled in the air, fractured by sunlight into millions of tiny prisms. Her breath froze in clouds before her, creating whimsical shapes before drifting away like broken promises. She waved to a few familiar people—locals who populated the waterways in the summer in outboards, trawling fishing lines off their sterns, who couldn’t give up the hope of a catch despite the subzero temperatures. Halfway to her shack, she slowed, her attention diverted by the sound of rhythmic pounding. A small 4x4, one of those ATVs that looked like golf carts on steroids, was parked on the ice not far away. Curious, she slogged in that direction.

  A dark-haired woman in a T-shirt and jeans knelt on the ice, methodically cutting perfectly square chunks from the frozen surface. She was tall and rangy with muscular shoulders and arms. Just as Dev drew near, the brunette looked up at a blonde in a red and black plaid wool jacket with an expression of such simple joy Dev’s heart ached. She missed Leslie most at moments like this, when she was reminded she was alone. She missed that singular connection that let her know she had a place in the world, safe and secure in Leslie’s heart.

  The two women turned in Dev’s direction, and she couldn’t help but smile, her loneliness banished for an instant. They were a gorgeous couple, one dark and one light, and by some trick of light they seemed surrounded by a faint glow. As the dark-haired woman rose, Dev’s vision shimmered for just a second and she could have sworn the ice ax in the woman’s hand was a sword. She shook her head, laughing at her imagination.

  “Hi,” Dev called.

  The brunette casually draped her arm over the blonde’s shoulder, nothing proprietary about it, just a natural movement that said this woman was her anchor. Her center.

  “You’re going to get cold if you stop working,” the blonde murmured to the brunette, giving her a look of fond tenderness while plucking at her sweat-soaked T-shirt.

  The brunette grinned and rubbed her cheek against the blonde’s temple. “But you can keep me warm.”

  The blonde shook her head, looped her arm around the brunette’s waist, and grinned at Dev. “Hi. I’m Adrian. This smart-ass is Rooke.”

  “I’m Dev. What are you doing?”

  “Cutting ice blocks,” Rooke said.

  Dev nodded. “Yup. That I can see. Why?”

  “I don’t have any stone.”

  “Okay. I’m with you so far.”

  The blonde, Adrian, punched Rooke lightly on the shoulder and said to Dev, “She’s a great conversationalist, really. It just takes her a year or so to get warmed up.”

  Rooke grinned.

  The energy that poured from them was like nothing Dev had ever experienced. She’d been around plenty of couples, straight and gay. Friends who she knew without a doubt loved each other. These two, though—these two projected such a sense of timeless unity, she wasn’t even certain they were real. Which was ridiculous, because she could see their breath and she wasn’t prone to hallucination. “What are you going to build?”

  “A castle,” Rooke said. “I’ve always wanted to build her a castle, and now I’m getting the chance.”

  “Uh-huh,” Dev said. Okay, well, they’re a little nuts. Seem harmless, though.

  Adrian laughed. “The Winter Carnival? At the center of town? Rooke is building—”

  “Oh!” Dev said. “You’re the ice sculptor?”

  “Actually, I’m a stone carver, but like I said—”

  “Right. No stone.” Dev laughed. “So why don’t you just buy the ice from one of the commercial pla—” At the sight of the thundercloud rising in Rooke’s eyes, Dev reconsidered. “Right. The stone—the ice—that’s as much a part of the creation as the final form, right?”

  “That’s right. The stone—the ice—they are the sculpture.”

  As Rooke spoke, she stroked Adrian’s shoulder, and Dev’s fingers ached with the absence of Leslie. She’d seen her at Thanksgiving, two weeks before, but Les had a big case she was trying in DC in another week and had to stay close to the New York office while she prepped. So Les was at her Manhattan apartment and Dev was at the cabin she rented at Leslie’s parents’ lakeside resort. Most of the time their long-distance relationship didn’t bother her. She was often out on the lake for days at a time, camping alone or with a tech on one of the many islands, doing field research. She and Les usually managed to spend more than half the month together, one or the other of them traveling between the lake and the city. But there were plenty of nights Dev slept alone, and too many mornings she awakened with her arms empty and her heart aching.

  “I’ll have to stop by later and see it when it’s done,” Dev said.

  Adrian rubbed her cheek against Rooke’s shoulder. “Do that. You should bring your partner, too.”

  “I would. She’s working this weekend, though.”

  “We’ll be at the castle until sundown,” Adrian said with a smile that warmed Dev to the bone.

  “Thanks. I’ll be by.”

  Ten minutes later Dev unloaded her gear at her research shack, a plywood structure resembling an outhouse, for want of a better description, and only slightly better constructed. She did have a small propane heater inside, a five-foot-long wood bench attached to the wall to sit on, and some shelves to store her equipment. With a Coleman lantern for light and the heater going, she was comfortable enough. She set up her monitors, dropped her probes through the hole she’d drilled in the ice, and started the data recorders. After unzipping a subzero sleeping bag to use as a cover, she got comfortable on the bench and pulled out a book. When she started to get drowsy, she stretched out on the bench, tucked the sleeping bag around her, and closed her eyes. She awakened to the touch of warm lips moving against her mouth.
/>
  “Hey, sleepyhead,” Leslie Harris said, kneeling beside the bench where Dev slept. “You know anyone could’ve walked in here and kissed you?”

  “Can’t think of anyone else who would want to,” Dev said, her heart leaping at the unexpected appearance of her lover. She sat up and made room under the quasi blanket. Leslie scooted in next to her and Dev wrapped an arm around her and kissed her again. Properly this time. Leslie tasted of peppermint and ice. Her skin was still cool from the walk across the lake, but her mouth was hot. Dev had visions of coming in from a raging blizzard to stand by the hearth, the roaring blaze thawing her frozen soul. “God, what are you doing here?”

  “I missed you.” Leslie unzipped Dev’s jacket and slid her hand inside. She nuzzled Dev’s neck and nipped at her earlobe. “Do you mind me interrupting your work?”

  “Trust me, the fish aren’t going anywhere fast.”

  Leslie stared around the tiny, unadorned shack. “Cozy in here, just the two of us.”

  “Don’t forget the fish,” Dev said, kissing Leslie’s throat.

  “Do you think they can see us?”

  “I doubt they’re interested.” Dev opened Leslie’s parka and murmured in approval when she discovered a flannel shirt underneath. She unbuttoned the top three buttons and kissed the warm, soft skin between Leslie’s breasts. Leslie’s fingers came into her hair and guided her face onto her breast until Dev closed her mouth over Leslie’s nipple.

  “I’ve wanted you to do that for the last week,” Leslie said, her voice husky and low. “Sometimes I’d be in the middle of a meeting, once even in court, and I’d suddenly remember the feel of your mouth on me, your hands inside me, and I’d feel like I was melting. I couldn’t even think for a second.” She gripped Dev’s hair and pulled her face away from her breast until their eyes met. “I love you so much. Sometimes I think back to when we were kids and I almost let you get away. It scares me to think I could lose you again.”

  “I’ll always be here, Les.” Dev made a tent out of the sleeping bag, knelt on the ice in front of Leslie, and opened her shirt the rest of the way. “I love you. I’ve missed you so damn much.”