Finally Read online

  Quinn caressed my face and planted a soft kiss on my cheek.

  “What about your job and your colleagues?”

  “Please,” I said in an offhand manner. “I’m an independent, strong-willed female who doesn’t talk about her private life. I’d be more amazed if they thought I was straight.”

  “Are you sure? It’s not too late to step away from this.”

  Something in her thoughtful tone wasn’t entirely convincing.

  Lifting my gaze to look into those captivating blue eyes, I spoke clearly. “All I know for sure is that when I fi rst met you, I felt my heart again. That hasn’t happened in a very long time. I was almost convinced I no longer had one.” I felt her hand slide down to my heart where the pounding grew more insistent. “You did that for me, angel. It’s way too late for me to step away from 42

  Finally

  this.”

  “Angel?” Her eyes fl ared before her talented mouth found mine again. This time her lips worked mine open and her tongue slipped inside. For the fi rst time, I felt the tenderness of an intimate kiss, not the smothering sensation I’d felt so often before.

  Her fi ngers moved down and brushed along the swell of my breast. She broke the kiss to look into my eyes, searching for any sign of hesitation. I responded by raising my hands to the front of her shirt to unbutton it. I followed each newly exposed piece of skin with a soft kiss. There was no mistaking the moan this time. I continued to remove her shirt before tilting up to capture her lips again.

  We stepped toward the bedroom. Our hands worked on buttons, zippers, and snaps to reveal the fl esh beneath. Stripped, I tore myself away from her embrace to examine her long, muscular frame. “It’s like an artist sculpted your body,” I spoke the fi rst words that formed.

  Pert breasts stood at attention, aching to be touched. Her waist tucked in between slender hips, and the slope of her fl at stomach led to an inviting strip of light brown hair. I wanted nothing more than to know this body, memorize its curves, feel its heat, touch its zones.

  “You’re amazing,” she self-consciously accepted the compliment. “And so very lovely yourself.”

  I couldn’t believe how free I felt. I’d always felt like I was being judged when I’d been intimate before. With Quinn, I didn’t feel rushed. I could bare myself fully and not worry about anything. The realization made my heart swell with an emotion I knew I couldn’t voice yet, but it made me bolder.

  Reaching for her, we tumbled onto the bed together. No laughter, only tender smiles with lips that would try to kiss any part of fl esh they could fi nd. For the fi rst time in my life, I allowed my hands to touch another woman. My fi ngers cupped 43

  Lynn Galli

  her breasts, drawing out to the nipples.

  “Oh God, Willa, I’ve wanted this for so long,” she spoke into my neck where her lips had found my sensitive skin.

  My hands moved down her torso to the insides of her thighs.

  I dragged my fi ngers along the delicate skin there. Slowly, I brought my hand to the velvety folds that marked her center.

  I settled myself onto her hip as my fi ngers worked a familiar motion. Her hips gyrated with me as I kissed my way down her chest to center on one breast. My tongue worked the underside before I paid attention to her nipple. She moaned again, her fi rm stomach clenching beneath me.

  Quinn’s hands slid along my back to grasp my rear before she rolled us over. A thigh nudged down between my legs as she pressed up against me. One hand snaked under my back to wrap around my waist while the other began to roam all over, touching every part of me. I’d never in my life been made to feel so much at once. When I experienced the wet suctioning mouth on my nipple, my breathing became erratic. Slowly that mouth moved down to my very being. Quinn’s tongue found me fi rst. Then her lips joined in. I cried out from the sheer pleasure and looked down to fi nd blue eyes watching me.

  “Please, Quinnie,” I breathed out, using my hands to hook under her shoulders and pull her up for a kiss. I had to have more of her. All of her. I rolled her over. “I’ve waited for this my whole life.”

  My mouth dipped to meet the sweet wetness that had been so inviting for my fi ngers before. Hips bucked in response, obviously not expecting me to fi nd my target so quickly. I tasted my lover, felt her softest, satiny skin, making her pant with ecstasy. When it was clear that she was very close, I rose up to lie on top of her.

  My fi ngers got back to work moments before hers reached for me again. The heat built rapidly between us, our bodies sliding against each other, fi ngers working frantically.

  44

  Finally

  Quinn’s excited shout was met by my climactic moan. We prolonged the pulsations, lingering in the rhythmic convulsions.

  My jerking head crashed down onto a shoulder, nipping the muscle there. Her fi ngers fi nally gave up, allowing me to descend from my peak. My own hand rested against her, the throbbing still evident against my fi ngers.

  Strong arms moved up to clutch at me. Minutes passed before I realized the thumping against my chest was her heartbeat. My own matched the pace beat for beat, threatening to make me pass out from the years of under use. My lips traced up to her mouth where I was rewarded with another breathtaking kiss.

  I smiled and surveyed those stunning eyes as the kiss broke.

  “I could stay like this forever,” I admitted before I had time to edit my thoughts. For the fi rst time, I didn’t want to. Speaking a profound truth like this felt so right after what we’d just shared.

  Those eyes showed equal parts pleasure and amazement. Soft lips found mine again. “I hope you mean that, Willa, because I feel like this is it for me.”

  “Oh, Quinnie,” I whispered, my heart starting to rev back up to an excited state. “I’ve been slowly dying for years. I didn’t know it, but I would go months without feeling anything at all, much less affection. Then I met you, and you brought back my heartbeat.”

  I wasn’t sure what the future would hold for us, but I did know that I didn’t ever want to feel empty inside again. Somehow I knew that Quinn would be integral to keeping that emptiness at bay, and I’d do everything I could to make sure that she remained in my life.

  45

  Objection

  ONE

  “You are the angriest person I’ve ever met. Seriously!”

  I calmly fl icked my eyes in the direction of my passenger as I steered the car into a visitor space at her condo complex. “Wasn’t it me who just bailed your ass out of jail?”

  “You don’t have to be such a sourpuss about it. I mean, seriously.”

  Because being woken up at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday and ordered to the courthouse to pay $5,000 bail for an idiot friend who can’t hold her liquor is something to be cheery about?

  “Well?” Valerie’s eyes widened in persistence from behind her bouncy bangs. Impossibly bouncy bangs. I admit, I have bangs envy. Mine have a cowlick that force me to brush them back off my forehead. I would never achieve the trendy hair-in-the-eyes look that Val and her friends had. A toss of the head for me did absolutely nothing to change my moussed, collar length crop. Val and her friends spent their entire freshman year practicing the coquettish mane toss, and they used it to their advantage every chance they got. That was about the time I started hating them.

  Of course, that was about the time I’d fi rst met them, too.

  “I’m waiting,” she persisted, getting absolutely nothing from my glance. “Your apology? We’re friends. Friends do this kinda stuff for each other and don’t throw tantrums when they do. Seriously, Linds, we’re all getting a little sick of your 47

  Lynn Galli

  angry spells. It’s why we didn’t invite you out last night with us.

  Haven’t you noticed we all don’t get together as often? Seriously, you can’t be that clueless.”

  Clueless enough to think that avoiding her clan for over a year would give her a big enough hint that I didn’t want to hang out with them, yes. Inste
ad, she somehow felt she was the one deciding whether or not we were spending quality time together.

  “I like you, Lindsay, seriously, but it’s getting harder to justify your behavior to our friends.” Valerie’s contact-enhanced green eyes blinked, holding back yet another of her emotional tides.

  “No one asked you to,” I said, stepping out of the car to get her moving.

  “Seriously?” she huffed, following me. Her arms waved to go with her righteous attitude as she approached. The fumes from the alcohol that had seeped through her pores all night battled with the stench of the other elements from her night in a jail cell.

  The sudden movement of her arms fl ung the odor in all directions around her. “I’ve been sticking up for you for ages. I practically have to bribe our friends to invite you out sometimes. Seriously.”

  I stopped and waited. It took four steps before she fi nally noticed that I wasn’t beside her and turned to face me. “Listen, Grey’s Anatomy, I don’t need you sticking up for me. I never asked you to do that. And if our other friends are so great, why the hell didn’t they keep you from slapping that woman last night, or at the very least, follow you to the police station to bail you out? Why is it that I’m the only friend you ever call when you get into trouble like this?”

  “That bitch had it coming. She had no right fl irting with my man like that.”

  “So you hit her? And last I heard Aaron wasn’t your man anymore.”

  She fl inched, shooting a dagger of a glare at me. “He’s mine.

  He just thinks he’s on a break right now.” Her fi ngers curled in the 48

  Objection

  air around the word “break,” making me want to reach out and snap them in half. She needed a spell in rehab for her addiction to air quotes.

  “This is the third time you’ve hit someone in a bar, Val. The second time someone has pressed charges for it. And you think I’m the angry one?” I didn’t wait for her sure petulant reply.

  Women like Val could never accept blame for anything. “Where were Nancy and Maria when you were assaulting this woman?

  And where are they now?”

  “Assaulting? Damn, Linds, you make it sound like I planned to hurt this woman. I slapped her, that’s all, and she deserved it.”

  That’s all? Every time I got together with Valerie I found myself silently echoing the idiotic things she said. “Okay, technically, threatening to slap her was assault. Slapping her was battery. We had this discussion the last time I picked you up from jail.”

  “So the bitch suffered a slight sting, big deal. What a baby.

  Grow a pair, I mean, seriously.”

  “I know the concept of empathy is foreign to you, but imagine sitting in a bar, meeting a guy who starts fl irting with you and, all of a sudden, some crazy bitch comes out of nowhere and slaps your face? Would you be fi ne with letting some stranger just get away without any punishment? I don’t think you get just how much trouble you’re in. This is your second offense. The fi rst time the judge let you off with a suspended sentence. That’s not going to happen this time. Yoshi should have told you that.”

  She made a “psshhhft” sound with her lips and waved another hand through the air. “It’s impossible to understand anything that guy says. I mean, seriously, how long has he lived here? He can’t get rid of his accent by now?”

  I sighed. I’d always known that she was self-absorbed and well, a little slow, but mean was new for her. “Yoshi’s the best public defender this town has. Be thankful he was assigned to 49

  Lynn Galli

  your case.” It was too much to ask that she be thankful that I had enough pull over at the PD’s offi ce to get him assigned to her case.

  “Feh! This will blow over. That bitch won’t follow through.

  At least not once we’ve all had a little chat with her.”

  She couldn’t really be this stupid, could she? Threatening the woman she’s already hit?

  “You could talk to her?” It wasn’t really a question. She meant it as an order, but she always thought raising her infl ection at the end of an order complete with pouty lips made her too charming to resist. “It’s what you do for the mayor, right?”

  My stony stare served as a reply. No way in hell I’d be going anywhere near someone who’s recently been battered to try to talk her into dropping the charges for an idiot friend of mine.

  “The mayor does not get drunk at a bar and slap any woman who talks to her husband.”

  “She doesn’t have to. She’s got people who do that for her.”

  “Valerie,” I kept calm, “I bailed you out. That’s the extent of my involvement in your mess.”

  “Gaaawd! You make me sound like a career criminal.”

  “You’ve been arrested four times.”

  “But two were in high school. Those don’t count.” She recognized my disbelieving look. “I should have called Maria.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Well, duh, she met a guy. So did Nancy. You’re the only I knew who wouldn’t be sleeping with some guy this morning.”

  She giggled like this was some inside joke that I would never be able to understand. She actually liked that I was a lesbian since I’d never be any competition for her men, but she and the girls made sure I remembered I was a lesbian any time we went out to a bar together. Apparently my bangs envy wasn’t the only envy in the group. They wanted my golden blond hair color as well as my never needed a tanning booth skin tone. They didn’t like 50

  Objection

  that trolling men looked at me as often as they glanced at them.

  “Maybe that’s why you’re always so angry. We need to get you laid. You know if you slept with guys, you’d have a lot more opportunities. It’s hard to fi nd lezzies in this town. Seriously.”

  Grabbing the keys from her hand, I unlocked her condo door and encouraged her inside. “Have the bail money in my hands by end of day. And stop sounding like you’re auditioning for some second rate television dramedy that hasn’t fi gured out that they’ve stolen eighty percent of their storylines from shows that aired over ten years ago.”

  Her shocked mouth opened and closed without the ability to form words. I shut her front door before she found her voice again.

  51

  TWO

  It was noon before I was disturbed again. I was supposed to be preparing for the mayor’s next event. Instead I was pacing the nearly deserted corridors of city hall, bothered by a lot of things.

  My cell phone buzzed. Without looking at the display, I could guess who it was.

  “How much this time?” the familiar baritone spoke into my ear.

  I didn’t bother to wonder how he’d found out already. “Five grand, and she’s not getting out of this one, Thad.”

  Valerie’s uncle took a moment before he replied. Despite being only a year older than Valerie, he took his family relationships seriously. He’d been Valerie’s guardian angel ever since I’d met him. Often, I wondered why he bothered. She never seemed to appreciate it. “I’ll transfer the money to your account today. Thanks for taking care of the bail process. Should I hire an attorney?”

  “If you keep making it easy for her to forget these major mistakes, she’s never going to stop making them,” I reminded him as I always did whenever his niece did something really stupid.

  “I know, I’m an enabler, but her mother’s an idiot who neglected her for years. She’s a messed up kid.”

  “She’s a thirty-six-year-old woman, and everyone was 52

  Objection

  neglected by their parents. Don’t keep allowing her to be irresponsible.”

  He sighed, long and hard. After the last incident where Valerie somehow walked off with a $10,000 bracelet she’d tried on, we’d had this discussion. I’d known him since the summer session of my fi rst year at Arizona. He’d come in from UMass to enjoy a warm, dry summer. We hit it off immediately and had stayed in touch ever since. Now we lived in the same town, eve
n if he spent most of his time on the road for his job. “What should I do?”

  This wasn’t his usual blow off tone. He was actually listening to me this time. Ever since he’d encouraged his niece to the University of Arizona where he knew I’d keep an eye on her, he’d always made excuses for her behavior. Now it looked like he was going to do something about it.

  “Don’t pay me back for starters. Valerie can come up with the money. Don’t hire an attorney for her. She’s got a great public attorney, but she might get jail time.”

  “Jail time? Jeez, Linds, I don’t know.”

  “She hit a stranger in a bar, Thad. Hit her. She can call it a slap, but to the person on the receiving end, an open hand feels just as bad as a closed fi st when she’s doing nothing other than minding her own business. I haven’t talked to Maria or Nancy yet, but I’m guessing that Valerie didn’t give the woman a chance to walk away before her arm started swinging. That’s not only irrational but dangerous. Imagine if she’d walked in and saw her on-again-off-again boyfriend having sex with some woman.

  She’d probably get a gun.”

  “No way, she’s not violent.”

  I scoffed, fl ashes of Valerie’s emotional ups and downs peppered my mind. “You may be used to having Valerie slap you when you make her mad, but strangers are not.”

  “Fine, I’ll let her fend for herself.”

  “Very good.” I heard the revolving doors at the main entrance 53

  Lynn Galli

  go into motion. I turned and watched the mayor walk inside. Her aide on her hip, heads down as they made their way to the offi ce.

  “I have to go. Stay strong, Thad. If you can’t handle it, stop taking her calls.”

  “Let’s hope this works.”

  I snapped my phone shut before pocketing it. “Good afternoon, Mayor Kingston, hello, Tammy.”

  “Hi, Lindsay, glad you’re here.” The mayor had a way of making it sound like I had a choice not to be here on a Saturday in an election year. “Where are we on those crime stats?”