Deo swung around and drove her thigh between Nita’s legs at the same time as she plunged her tongue into Nita’s mouth. Nita gripped Deo’s hair in both hands and arched to meet her thrusts. She sucked on Deo’s tongue as Deo pounded between her legs. The pressure of Deo’s leg hammering into her clitoris was too much.

“Oh, I can’t hold it any more!” Nita felt herself shattering and jerked Deo’s head back, frantically searching her face until she found her eyes. “I’m coming. Come with me. Please, oh please.”

“Yes, fuck, yes,” Deo cried.

Nita’s breath fl ed as Deo kissed her and her body erupted. Then there was nothing, nothing except pleasure and Deo.

❖

Nita stroked Deo’s hair as Deo slept on top of her, her face in the curve of Nita’s neck and her thigh still cradled against Nita’s center. The weight of her body was far from uncomfortable. Nita marveled at the strange sensation of contentment that came from holding a woman who had just orgasmed in her arms so thoroughly, so completely, that she had drifted off in the aftermath. She felt powerful, she felt protective, she felt humbled. Deo’s trust frightened her, but the intimacy terrifi ed her even more. She had learned to do without this kind of connection.

She had learned not to hope for it. She had almost succeeded in learning not to want…anything. With Deo, she had surrendered to the wanting, but that was all she was willing to risk.

“Deo,” Nita murmured. “Deo, hey. We have to get up.”

“Sure?” Deo kissed Nita’s neck and rolled her thigh suggestively between Nita’s legs. “You’re still wet.”

“And you’re insatiable.” Nita played her hands up and down Deo’s back, then squeezed the hard muscles in her ass. She wanted to wrap

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her legs around Deo’s thighs and pump her still engorged sex into Deo until she came again. She couldn’t, precisely because she wanted to so much. She had to get some distance before she was incapable of saying no. “We both need to go to work.”

“I hear rain.”

Nita watched rivulets of water stream across the skylight above their heads. The sky beyond was the color of ash, thick and foreboding.

“You won’t be going up on any roofs today.”

“No chance you can go in late?” Deo nudged her crotch into Nita’s leg. “I’m getting another hard on.”

“When aren’t you?” Nita laughed shakily. She wanted her. She wanted her in ways she hadn’t imagined possible. Wanting her inside her body was the easy part. That she understood. That she could even control, if she wasn’t touching her. The part she couldn’t, wouldn’t embrace, was the comfort, the peace she felt when they talked and Deo listened. When Deo understood. When Deo accepted. “Come on, rise and shine before you get too worked up.”

“Too late,” Deo muttered, pushing up on her arms. “Why do I feel like you’re running away?”

“I’m not,” Nita said fl atly, carefully keeping her voice level. She had to set the limits, and quickly, before the pull of Deo’s desire undid her. “There’s nothing to run away from. We agreed, remember? One night. One night to let the pressure out of the steam cooker we seem to have fallen into.”

“Did it work for you?”

“You know it did.”

“And that’s it?” Deo grated. “You get off a few times, then you walk out and forget it?”

“Don’t make it more than it was,” Nita said softly. She touched Deo’s face. “Or less.”

“I want to see you again.”

“Deo, get up.” Nita pushed lightly against Deo’s shoulder. She couldn’t have this conversation with their bodies tangled together, with the slick slide of Deo’s skin making her so hot inside. Not when Deo was hard and wet against her leg. “Please.”

Deo pushed up and off until she was sitting by Nita’s side. “I’m not Sylvia. I’m not going to force you to have sex with me.”

“She didn’t force me,” Nita said coldly, refusing to ascribe her

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guilt to someone else. “I wanted her to fuck me.”

“You think I buy that?”

Nita threw the covers aside and got out of bed. She unhurriedly began gathering her clothes from the fl oor. “What you think about it doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t do this, Nita,” Deo said, swinging from bed and standing naked beside her. “Don’t pretend last night wasn’t good.”

“Last night wasn’t good, it was excellent.” Nita pulled on her blouse. “Your reputation doesn’t do you justice.”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“What do you want?”

“I already told you. I want to see you again.”

“For sex.” Nita slid into her slacks.

“No.”

Nita snorted.

“Yes,” Deo exclaimed, clearly frustrated, “but not just—”

“What kind of arrangements do you usually make with women who you want to have sex with more than once?”

Deo frowned. “What you do mean, arrangements?”

“What do you say to them?”

“Jesus,” Deo muttered, grabbing a pair of jeans from a nearby chair and yanking them on. “I don’t sign a contract.”

“All right. Terms then.” Nita found her purse, fi shed out a clip, and pulled her hair back. “No expectations. No strings. Nonexclusive.

Right?”

A muscle bunched along the edge of Deo’s jaw. “More or less.”

“That could work,” Nita mused. “It might be good to blow off steam again, so to speak.”

“What?” Deo snapped. “You’ll call me for a fuck?”

“Actually I was thinking of something a little more civilized—

along the lines of dinner and sex.” Nita found her shoes and gathered the rest of her things. “Would you drive me home, please?”

Deo shrugged into a work shirt, her hands trembling. “I want more than sex.”

“Since when?”

Deo grabbed Nita’s shoulders, then immediately loosened her grip when she saw Nita wince. “Since you.”

Nita’s resolve wavered. Deo was angry, but her eyes were soft.

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Soft and gentle, and wounded. Nita wanted to believe that Deo wanted more than her body. She wanted to give in to the longing to confess her fears and uncertainty, but she didn’t trust her own needs. She’d lost herself once, and Deo unhinged her in much the same way Sylvia had.

She couldn’t deny her physical urges, or even control them when Deo was around, but she could keep from risking her sanity again. She eased out of Deo’s grip. “I’m sorry. I’m not interested in anything more than last night.”

“Last night was already more than just sex.” Deo kicked into Docksiders and headed toward the hall. “You can pretend anything you want.”

Silently, Nita followed her retreating back. It might work. If she could somehow just keep her affair with Deo in the bedroom. And keep Deo out of her mind.

❖

An hour later Deo slammed into the real estate offi ce, dripping water in streams onto the fl oor.

Elana Torres broke off talking with Pia, who sat on the corner of her desk, and regarded Deo with surprise. “Something on fi re? Hard to believe with the weather.”

“Joey around?” Deo said, stomping over to her desk to collect her messages.

“He’s got an appointment with me in an hour for therapy,” Pia said. “Considering the weather, he probably just fi gured he’d show up at the job—”

“We work whether it rains or shines. He knows that.” Deo grabbed her mail and shuffl ed through it, scarcely able to read the addresses through her fury. When she had dropped Nita off, Nita had kissed her on the cheek and thanked her for a great time before sliding out of the truck and disappearing without a backward glance. Thanked her! Jesus Christ. What was she now, a fucking gigolo?

Pia appeared at her elbow and asked in a low voice, “What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, crap, Deo. Don’t pull that with me.”

Deo tossed aside her mail and stabbed the button on her answering

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machine. Nita’s voice hit her like a hammer. Deo, it’s Nita—

“Fuck,” Deo seethed, punching the stop button.

“Ah ha.” Pia tugged Deo’s sleeve. “Let’s go have coffee.”

“I’ve got to get out to the site.”

“It’s pouring, Deo. There’s not much work going to happen today.”

With a sigh, Deo surrendered and let Pia drag her to a coffee shop around the corner.

“So, what gives?” Pia asked.

“I don’t know. I wish I did.” Deo pushed her coffee aside. Her stomach was queasy.

“Let me guess. Nita.”

Deo nodded.

“You slept with her.”

“Yeah.”

Pia sighed. “Deo, sweetie. Nita is not like your usual…girlfriends.

I mean, some of them I’ve really liked, but… they were goodtime girls.

Party girls. Nita is, I don’t know, deeper than that.”

“What’s your point,” Deo grumbled.

“I love you, you know that, right?” Pia gently stroked Deo’s hand.

“Right?”

“Just say it, Pia.” Deo was tired, and her head hurt, and—worse—

her heart hurt.

“I just mean, she probably expected something besides goodbye in the morning.”

Deo laughed bitterly. “Wrong. What she expected was I’d be available next time she wanted a dependable fuck. Other than that, she’s not interested in my company.”

Pia’s jaw dropped. After a second, her eyes narrowed. “She said that? She said that to my cousin! Why that—”

“Whoa. Whoa. Easy.” Deo laughed in spite of herself. “Even you just said that’s about all I’m good for.”

“That’s different. I can say it about you if I want to.” She closed her fi ngers over Deo’s hand. “What am I not understanding here?”

“Nita and I…we’ve got this thing, this energy between us,” Deo said, feeling helpless. “More than physical. But she doesn’t want it to be about anything except sex.”

“Because she thinks you’re a player and won’t ever change?”

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“I don’t know. I think…I think she’s okay having sex with me, because she can control that.”

“She can? That doesn’t sound like you.”

Deo remembered the way it felt when Nita teased her right up to the edge of coming while refusing to let Deo touch her. It was maddening and frustrating and made her come harder than she’d ever come in her life. And if she didn’t stop thinking about it now, she was going to have to drive out to the beach for a little solo action in the truck before she went to work. “It’s different with her.”

“Uh-huh.” Pia rested her chin in her hand. “So her reluctance isn’t necessarily about you and your fucked up ways.”

“Thanks, Cuz.” Deo couldn’t very well say that Nita had been abused by some woman and acted like Deo would treat her the same way. She rubbed her eyes, wishing she was still in bed and Nita was holding her the way she had this morning when she was still half asleep, stroking her and making her feel like she belonged somewhere.

“There’s some other stuff going on. I don’t think it’s all about me.”

“Good,” Pia said briskly, sitting back in her seat. “Because if it was just that she didn’t like you for anything other than your talented hands and your hot mou—”

“Jesus, Pia. Cut it out.” Deo blushed. “You’re my cousin. You’re not supposed to say stuff like that.”

“Oh, please. I’ve been listening to girls swoon over your skills for years.” Pia smiled as Deo squirmed. “Does she really mean something to you? It’s not just your ego acting up because you’ve fi nally run into a woman who doesn’t want any more from you than you’re usually willing to give?”

“No. She makes me…” Deo’s throat tightened and she looked away until the tension in her throat eased. “She makes me feel like I matter.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Pia whispered. “You do.”

“Yeah, well. You’ve always made me feel that way. But this is different.”

“I know.” Pia stroked Deo’s clenched fi st where it rested on the table. “If Nita doesn’t trust you or what she’s feeling for you, then prove to her that she can.”

“How,” Deo whispered.

“Don’t give up.”

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Nita stared at the lab report, but she didn’t register the values.

Her mind was completely consumed with Deo. Exactly what she feared would happen was happening. She craved her. The way her skin slid under her fi ngertips, the way her breath wafted over her breast as she slept, the way her eyes gleamed when she was pleased or being pleasured. She ached to hear Deo murmur her name and to feel the tender touch of her fi ngertips against the small of her back. She longed to share her thoughts, knowing she could tell her anything because she had already confessed her worst secret and her greatest shame, and Deo had not rejected her. She’d only to recall the soft brush of Deo’s hot mouth on her tense and waiting fl esh and she was ready to explode.