Love's Masquerade Read online

  Too weary now, my eyes close in surrender, allowing the darkness to enclose me.

  She touches me, her skin...her skin warm on mine. Even in my sleep, the light caress infuses me with hope. I cry out for her and, without hesitation, she carries me to shore. Tenderly, she cradles my head in her lap and strokes my forehead, consoling me.

  Visible beneath the shell of my body, my heart pounds, and she presses her palm to the place where it is breaking, healing me. I draw a breath, her fingers rising with me, never leaving my skin. Never leaving me. She banishes the pain, and I open my eyes to thank her.

  Of course, I am yet dreaming. And I am still alone.

  Rune read the passage slowly, an unfamiliar longing twisting through her stomach. Not truly unfamiliar, merely forgotten. She could almost feel the fingers on her face, the tender touch.

  “How have you done this?” she whispered aloud.

  The words mocked her.

  “Of course, I am yet dreaming. And I am still alone.”

  Of course, I am still alone. With a disgusted sigh, she opened her e-mail program and began to scan the messages. Abruptly, she stopped, her eyes lingering on the unexpected name.

  *

  As soon as Auden let herself into her apartment, she dropped her briefcase along with the mail she had collected from the shared foyer onto the small telephone table just inside her front door. Then she walked directly to the rear of the apartment and into her bedroom. She undressed quickly, taking time only to hang her suit on the closet door, and pulled on comfortable loose cotton pants and a favorite faded V-neck sweater. She curled up on the bed and reached for Secret Storm. Before opening to her place from the previous night, she rifled through to the back and found what she was looking for.

  AUTHOR’S BIO

  Rune Dyre has published three novels: Hidden Dreams, Dark Destiny, and Secret Storm.

  Lesbian Review stated, “Dyre has a talent for infusing the classic romance with an eroticism rarely seen in a love story. She blends the two effortlessly and promises to satisfy aficionados of either genre.”

  Dark Passions, a forebodingly captivating romance, will be published by WomenWords in the near future.

  Auden was disappointed to discover nothing particularly revealing. She wasn’t sure what she had hoped to find or why she should care about information concerning the author. The usual official titles and affiliations that she looked for in a scholarly text would have no meaning here. And personal information about the author was of no consequence. Who Rune Dyre was didn’t matter; only what she wrote affected Auden. Her words spoke for themselves.

  Impatiently, Auden opened the book, began to read, and as had happened the night before, was soon absorbed. Again, the hours passed unawares.

  She could taste herself on her lover’s mouth, surprised to feel her own body stir again even as the vestiges of the orgasm that had racked her only moments before lingered. Sliding down her lover’s finely muscled form, she paused at the hollow of the arched neck to place a light kiss before continuing the slow descent, savoring every inch along the way. Pushing herself up on one hand, she slowly bit an erect nipple.

  “Oh, love,” came the quiet sigh.

  Smiling, she slowly took the small nipple into her mouth, flicking it with her tongue until it was harder still, and the soft moans became urgent gasps. Her own lids were heavy, her eyes hooded with desire, as she lowered her head to kiss the taut stomach and lick a small circle around the trim navel.

  “I want to see your face when you come for me,” she murmured, nipping at the soft skin of her lover’s inner thigh, then blowing a light breath on the soft curls between taut thighs. As she felt her lover’s hand stroke her cheek, she lifted those trembling legs over her own shoulders and bent to drink the sweet nectar that was, and only ever could be, love.

  Auden closed the book abruptly and stood, dropping it onto the bed. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been expecting the scene. Despite the clear action-oriented plot, Secret Storm was just as much a love story as a thriller. She just hadn’t expected it to affect her the way it had. She was aroused. Unmistakably and uncomfortably so.

  Her heart pounded, and there was an undeniable heaviness in the pit of her stomach. She had become so involved in the love scene that even when she’d felt herself starting to respond physically, she couldn’t turn her eyes away. Not until she could no longer bear the urgency in her own flesh.

  The physical excitement itself wasn’t new, and she was no stranger to the pleasures of satisfaction, either. She’d just never encountered such intense arousal in this way before, never really thought about the source of her excitement at all. But considering it now, she supposed that she had always assumed it was simply physiologic. She had a body; it was natural now and then to feel physical arousal. But she’d never before become sexually excited just from reading a book. Sometimes images from a film had lingered in her mind and formed a backdrop for her desire, but never in the true sense of sexual fantasy. Her mind just didn’t work that way.

  “Well, it seems to be working that way now.” She walked rapidly through the apartment to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of pale ale from the refrigerator. She opened the bottle, poured the liquid into a glass, and took a large swallow.

  “God, my hands are shaking. I can’t believe this.”

  Alone, she sat at the kitchen table, rubbing the cool glass across her forehead as her body slowly returned to normal. “What have I been missing?”

  As the moments ticked by, her thoughts were not on fiction.

  *

  “Hey, come on in,” Gayle said in surprise as she opened her apartment door at the sound of a quiet knock. “What are you doing up so late?”

  “I heard you come home, and I was still awake,” Auden explained sheepishly. “I know you’re probably beat.”

  “Nah, I’m wired. I always feel that way at the end of a shift.” Gayle grabbed Shylock’s leash and said, “I have to run him around the block. Wanna come?”

  “Sure. I’ll just go downstairs and get a jacket.”

  “Don’t bother. Take one of mine.” Gayle gestured to several coats hanging on pegs just inside her door.

  Auden pulled down a quilted red and black checked hunting jacket and shrugged it on.

  Gayle cocked her head. “You look kinda cute all butched out in that jacket.”

  “Oh yeah?” Auden blushed furiously. “Is that all it takes—a jacket?”

  “No, honey. What it takes is attitude.” Gayle nudged her playfully with a shoulder. “’Sides, it would take a hell of a lot more than flannel to hide your femme power.”

  “Let’s just go walk the dog,” Auden said, but she laughed as she felt her spirits lift.

  As Shylock pulled her down the sidewalk, Gayle asked, “What are you doing up so late? Aren’t you usually in bed by now?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Auden confessed. The two friends stopped as Shylock investigated a tree trunk and then left his mark, the first of many on his nightly route. “I’ve been doing my homework.”

  “Your homework? Oh...your reading list.” Gayle chuckled. “How’s it going? Are you suffering from culture shock yet?”

  “No, actually, I’m...enjoying it.”

  Gayle glanced at her sharply, alerted to something amiss by the pensive tone in her friend’s voice. “Is something wrong? Bad day at work?”

  “No, not at all,” Auden said quickly. “It’s just...” She paused, frustrated, and shrugged. “I don’t know. I just finished the first book a few minutes ago. That’s when I heard you come in.”

  “Which one did you read?”

  “Secret Storm.”

  “Ahh,” Gayle said, stopping abruptly to disentangle Shylock’s leash from around a fireplug. “Did you like it?”

  “Very much.”

  “It’s pretty...racy.”

  “Yes.”

  Gayle stopped at the corner of 23rd and Pine and leaned her shoulder against a light pole. After midnight on a
weeknight in the residential area, the street was deserted. Shylock busied himself trying to dig out a piece of trash from beneath a parked car. “Okay. What’s going on?”

  Auden placed her hands in the pockets of the hunting jacket and rocked from foot to foot, searching for the words to explain her strange disquiet. “I really liked the book. I didn’t expect to. I mean, I want to go home right now and read it over again.”

  “You mean, you liked the women?”

  Auden stared at her friend. “Yes. I liked the women.”

  “Uh-huh.” Gayle nodded. “Come on, Shylock,” she said as she tugged on his leash and resumed walking. “That’s what’s supposed to happen in these books. The women are supposed to make an impression on you. You’re supposed to feel as if you know them or, sometimes, as if you might even be them. That’s the whole point.”

  “Well, I guess that’s what happened, then.”

  “It’s not so different than any other book, right? Any good writer will do that—draw you in.”

  “Of course.” Auden hesitated. “But it was more than just a transitory sense of connection. It was...recognition.” She drew a deep breath and looked into Gayle’s eyes. “I saw myself.”

  “Saw yourself how?” Gayle walked slowly, and, as if sensing the mood, Shylock, for once, trotted obediently by her side. They’re lesbians, Aud. What are you telling me?

  “This is going to sound so dumb,” Auden mumbled. “I knew their pain and their loneliness, and in the end, I felt as if their joy was mine.”

  “Yeah,” Gayle said softly. “I know what you mean. I guess that’s why I love reading them so much. I don’t think when I read those books. I just feel.”

  “I didn’t expect it.”

  “I think it’s pretty natural.”

  “Good,” Auden replied pensively.

  “So, Aud,” Gayle teased gently, “that particular book has some pretty hot stuff in it, too. Did it turn you on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, good for you.” Gayle laughed in delight. “Did you have to do the old ‘substitute a man for one of the women’ thing, like I substitute a woman for the guy in straight books?”

  “What?” Auden’s confusion was plain in her voice. “Why would I...oh. No, I...just enjoyed the two of them together.” They were so beautiful. So right together.

  “Whoa. So did you imagine one of those hot sexy women making love to you?”

  “No,” Auden said softly. Haydon Palmer’s face flashed through her mind. “Not exactly.”

  For some reason, Gayle didn’t ask her anything else. She simply threaded her arm through Auden’s and gave her a sympathetic hug. “Don’t worry, Aud. It will all work out.”

  Will it?

  Rune reviewed the message just to be sure.

  -----Reply-----

  From: [email protected]

  Sent: Wednesday March 19, 2:20 AM

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: Manuscript-Dark Passions

  Attachment: Dark Passions.doc 858KB

  Ms. Frost:

  Attached please find the current draft of Dark Passions for your review.

  Since there are no substantial changes in the new contract, I will return my signed copy to you by mail within the week.

  Thank you for affording me the opportunity to bring this work to completion.

  Sincerely,

  Rune Dyre

  Perfectly businesslike. She clicked Send, logged off, and went to bed. When she finally slept, the dreams returned.

  Chapter Six

  When she opened her eyes, Auden was stunned to feel the warmth of another body, to find that she was not alone in bed.

  Gayle? Did I fall asleep in Gayle’s apartment? We were talking and...

  She couldn’t remember. Her mind was suffused with half images and broken fragments—elusive memories fluttering on the edge of consciousness. Her body was strangely lethargic, too, floating in that indolent plane between sleep and wakefulness.

  Despite her confusion, she was quite aware of the firm arm wrapped around her waist, and of the heat of the body pressed to her back as she lay curled on her side. Warm breath blew rhythmically across her neck. Carefully, she inched away, only to be stopped by the hand tightening against her stomach and a soft murmur of protest. Almost at once, that hand, which had been softly stroking her stomach, drifted higher, cupping her bare breast. Sharply, she drew in a breath as a swift shaft of arousal pierced her, her thighs clenching as the muscles deep within contracted. She felt the sudden urge to press her hips back into the heat that flared against her buttocks, but she resisted, lying as still as she possibly could.

  Another muted murmur, lips against her skin, and a swell of moisture anointed her thighs.

  “Oh,” she gasped as a warm mouth explored her neck, then a teasing tongue traced the rim of her ear. This time, she couldn’t hide the small jerk of her hips as pleasure seared through her. Rocking back against the soft breasts and firm thighs, she heard an answering moan. Struggling to contain the onslaught of sensation, her vision clouded as other senses burst to life. Her skin tingled, light danced beneath her half-closed lids, and passion beat in her blood.

  Fingers explored her breast, then brushed the nipple that was already so hard, already so sensitive. Everything pulsed in a single rhythm now—her body, her blood, the swiftly swelling heart of need between her thighs. Her mind emptied even as her flesh erupted with sensation. Excitement hammered in her depths, and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth to still her cries.

  The mouth on her neck grew more insistent, biting lightly in time with the rhythmic pressure on her nipples. It was more than she had ever imagined, and far less than she required.

  “Oh God, I need you to touch me.”

  Not thinking, not questioning, she turned onto her back, grasping the tormenting hand, drawing it from her breasts, down over her abdomen, finally pressing it between her thighs. Her body was screaming for release, her clitoris stiff and pulsing, achingly hard. The first touch was electric, and she reared up, stomach clenched—desperately watching as the fingers beneath her own stroked her. Her breath left her in a rush; she was dying, poised on the precipice of discovery.

  “Please.”

  Even as the plea escaped her lips, she turned her head, eyes wide, needing the connection as her climax hovered just out of reach. As tender fingers closed along her length, drawing her closer with agonizingly exquisite pressure, she met not Gayle’s hazel eyes, but obsidian ones, flecked with silvers and golds. Familiar eyes, deep with desire.

  “Oh!” she cried, lost in those dark depths, everything inside of her exploding.

  The wrenching climax rocketed Auden from sleep just as the alarm went off.

  “Oh God,” she sobbed, squeezing with the hand still caught between her thighs, legs jerking as the orgasm raged. “Oh God, oh God...”

  When she finally caught her breath, Auden rolled over and shut off the alarm, then lay on her back staring at the ceiling. Chest heaving, she twitched faintly as her muscles struggled to recover.

  Well, that’s a first. More than a first. I would have thought I was too old for wet dreams, and I’ve never come in my sleep like that. God, it was so real. I can’t believe I dreamed that. What’s happening to me?

  Beneath her fingers, her clitoris still pulsed. She knew if she lingered much longer, she would need to come again. Reluctantly, but with a sigh of relief as well, she forced herself upright and out of bed. The orgasm had been brilliant, burning through her with terrible urgency. But even as her body welcomed the release, her heart seemed heavier for the coldness of the empty bed beside her.

  Her legs were still shaking, and an insistent echo of desire rolled through her. Swiftly, she crossed to the bathroom, leaned into the shower, and turned on the water. The sluice of spray helped restore her body and her mind to some sense of normalcy.

  Okay. No big deal. You were turned on when you went to sleep. Obviously, your body decided to tak
e care of matters all on its own. Nothing else to read into it.

  “Yeah, right.” She tried to ignore the memory of looking into all too familiar eyes as she came. “Sure. God.”

  As she dressed and made coffee, lingering by the window for a few moments to watch the morning, Auden steadfastly refused to think about the dream. Nevertheless, it flitted across the recesses of her memory. She didn’t try to deny that she had come while imagining a woman’s touch. That didn’t bother her.

  That could mean anything, probably means nothing. Just one of those dream things where everything gets turned upside down. Jeez, I even dreamed it was Gayle.

  Auden turned from the window and busied herself with collecting her keys and briefcase. She didn’t need to think about what she refused to put into words. She knew the truth to her core. It wasn’t Gayle who had made her come.

  *

  When Auden arrived at work, she nodded hello to Alana and started down the hall toward her temporary office.

  “Ms. Frost?” the receptionist called.

  Auden turned and walked back. “Yes?”

  “I have several messages here for you.”

  “Oh?” She hadn’t even had time to check her e-mail before leaving the house. Her morning had been too disjointed, another sign that she was off her stride. She forced herself to concentrate. “What?”

  “A Ms. Liz Nixon called to say that she received your e-mail and was available for a meeting.”

  “Did she say when?”

  “At your convenience,” Alana said formally.

  “Do you know if I’ll be getting a temporary secretary today?”