"Oh, you are in a mood tonight, aren't you?" She didn't seem the least bit displeased when she figured out what I was thinking.

The first door was locked, the second revealed another couple with the same idea. If they were even aware of the door opening, they didn't show it. A third bedroom was equally occupied, and the bathroom was usable only if one could ignore the noises coming from behind the gla.s.s shower doors. I sighed with frustration.

"Over here," Tess said. She pulled me behind a pair of large potted ficus bushes.

"Baby, anyone can see us."

"Only from the shoulders up. Besides, who here is going to arrest us?"

My pulse reached a boil. "I see your point. So I'll f.u.c.k you right here?"

For an answer, she gave me a slack-jawed look and pulled up her dress to reveal that I wasn't the only one who'd gone out without panties.

"Baby." I was stunned. She was in one of her moods, and I loved those moods, but this was more than...beyond even...I might have stood there, mouth hanging open, but fortunately a little voice inside me shouted, "Shut up and f.u.c.k her, you idiot!"

I unzipped. "All for you."

"Now," she said, spreading her legs.

It felt like the first time all over again. She made a sound that made my head spin. I pushed harder, paused when Tess reached down. "Is it okay? d.a.m.n, we need lube, baby."

"It's fine, just something...there. Oh yes, Brandy, please."

Her hands went down the back of my pants, squeezing and ma.s.saging my bare a.s.s. The surge of erotic adrenaline drove every other thought out of my head. I bit her neck, held on, lived all our nights and days over again, felt that electric current of memories that culminated in the promise of a future that went on like this, full of love and pa.s.sion and play-f.u.c.ked her through her first climax, knew there would be a second, and relished that knowledge. I loved this woman, loved being with her, and knowing her body the way I did only deepened the magic.

She said my name, gorgeous in her abandon. "Don't stop."

"You know I won't."

"d.a.m.n it, Brandy, you know, please..."

Our words danced back and forth, no pattern or reason anyone else would understand, but four years and more of working on our own language meant I knew she wanted hard, deep, steady strokes now, then short ones, softer while she hovered on the edge of climax again. I listened, heard the sharp whimpers. I pinned Tess to the wall, words and little noises all jumbled together.

We drifted in each other's arms on the dance floor. I was zipped and a little bit wobbly in the knees.

"That was incredibly fun."

"It was," I agreed. "Want to do it again?"

"In our room. In just a little while." She ground against me with no rhythm that matched the music, and it was perfect.

A woman paused next to us as we swayed. I recognized the attractive Latina from the elevator. With a direct look at Tess, she said, "Mind if I cut in?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." Tess arched one eyebrow at the woman that plainly said, "Go away."

"Sorry. I know you already got some of what she's packing, and you may have noticed that she's the only one who is. But if you're not sharing, that's cool."

"She's not for borrowing."

The woman shrugged expressively and walked away.

I looked up at Tess, not exactly confused, but I wasn't sure why she had put it quite that way. For a moment, she wouldn't meet my gaze, but then she did with her serious, open expression that I had always found brave and wise. But at the moment it was tinged with chagrin.

"I didn't even ask you if you wanted-"

"I didn't," I a.s.sured her. "I really didn't and I don't. You're right. I'm not for-"

"I want to make it permanent," she said, all in a rush.

"Are you sure?" My heart melted in my chest.

"No borrowing. No sharing. Just us. I want to be yours." She kissed me softly. "And I want you to be mine."

"Yes." I kissed her back, then nuzzled at the pulse point of her throat.

"I know it'll be the same old, same old, boring and..." Her voice trailed away.

I stepped back to give her an incredulous look. "You're kidding, right? Boring? You?"

She shrugged a big fat it-really-doesn't-bother-me lie and wouldn't look me in the eye.

It was no time to be shy.

"You just let me f.u.c.k you in public and we've done a lot of things, but that was the hottest so far, and if you think I'll ever be bored with your body, you're crazy, and right now I want to take you back to our room and do about five hours worth of the same-old-same-old, until we're both sore and exhausted and this new, very lucky toy, is worn down to a nub. Then we're going to start over because the favorite thing I love to hear you say is ahoney, I'm done' and that's what I live for, Tess, that's what I want, you, in my bed because you are every woman all in one, and I love you."

I ran out of breath. She blinked tears out of her eyes. Several women nearby had paused in their dancing, openly smiling.

I ducked my head in embarra.s.sment. When I finally decide to make a speech I really ought to learn to check if I've got an unwanted audience. "Time to go."

She tucked her hand under my arm and nodded.

Once in the elevator, Tess slid her hand down to intertwine our fingers. "Know what?"

I risked a look and found her gazing at me with eyes like stars. "What?"

"I think today really is our anniversary. From now on."

Sugar.

Published: 2004.

Characters: Sugar Sorenson, cake decorator Charlie Bronson, firefighter.

Setting: Seattle, Washington Sixteen candles and no end to the light.

The Hardest Part.

(3 years).

"Move it! Move IT!" Sugar knew she was screaming, and it was a good thing it was raining. With windows rolled up tight there was little chance of the other drivers hearing her. It felt good to scream. It let off tension, it pushed the fear farther away, right out of the van, somewhere out onto Lake Sammamish.

The wet roads made driving in her usual aggressive style unwise. She curbed her desire to lean on the horn and tried to calm herself. "You're no help to Charlie if you end up in the hospital too."

She'd left Grannie Fulton praying. If anyone had a direct line and could get G.o.d or Jesus or some saint to intervene, to make Charlie okay, it was Grannie Fulton. As annoying as the many years of her grandmother's Christian-based h.o.m.ophobia had been, the last few years of loving acceptance, of pleasure at being a family with Sugar and her Charlie, had more than made up for it. Charlie's endless appet.i.te for Grannie's cooking had permanently endeared them to each other. Her crazy schedule as a firefighter didn't interfere with their early start every day, either. Sugar would continue her cake projects while Grannie stirred up the first of many donated desserts and trays of lasagna to the senior center, the halfway house, the women and children's shelter...

Taillights flared red in front of her, reflecting off the wet pavement like fiery jewels. After a moment, the line began to move again. It would be no faster taking surface roads, but the stop-and-go was wearing her nerves to the last degree.

"Please, please," she pleaded with the traffic, but it was more than that. "Please let me get there and it's all a mistake. Please let it be just a scratch. Please...let her be okay."

Captain Johnson had told her not to worry, that it was probably minor. As if probably meant anything! She was thankful he had even bothered to call-oh, that wasn't fair. She had no issues with the way the department treated her and Charlie as a couple. Her problem was with the other wives.

The Wives. That's what they called themselves, and that included Tom Perlman, the only male spouse at the stationhouse. Tom took it in good humor. But Sugar heard the little hesitation before the word wives when Opal McKay said it. She made sure, every single time, that her referring to all of them as married women was heard as an exceptionally generous gesture on her part because, as everyone knew, Sugar of course wasn't married to Charlie.

They weren't really a family. But Opal, and her chief toady Heather Wong, allowed them to exist.

She told herself to relax her grip on the steering wheel. It took an effort to unclench her jaw. No, they weren't a real couple, and so Sugar wasn't really a member of the stationhouse family. Not part of the family when everybody else's kids wanted someone to buy wrapping paper or cookie dough or Girl Scout cookies or tickets to a school production. Not part of the family when someone cheerfully accepted her family discount on the latest cake they'd ordered from her.

She was tolerated. It stuck in her throat, and anyone who thought a goal in life was to be tolerated hadn't experienced tolerance the way mean-spirited people like Opal McKay could eke it out.

Finally at her exit, she veered off the freeway toward Sacred Heart Hospital, and asked herself what any of that mattered. Charlie's entire unit had been inside a collapsing home, and Captain Johnson had told her-only after she asked-that Charlie hadn't been conscious when the ambulance had taken her away. Alive, but not conscious. He didn't know if there were burns. He didn't really know...how bad it was.

Her cell phone remained silent. She guessed that was a blessing because she couldn't drive and talk and think and not hold back tears of fear and anger. She loved Charlie the firefighter, and loved that Charlie cared so much about saving people and their property, but dear G.o.d, she hated the job. She hated this about Charlie's job.

She had to circle the hospital twice to find the parking entrance. The rain was pelting down-Seattle, any time of year, night or day, it rained. It wasn't quite six o'clock, but the black clouds hid any sense of a sunset. She put the collar of her jacket up, covered her head with her purse, and ran for the emergency room doors.

The middle-aged woman at the nursing station looked up with a perfunctory smile.

"I'm Charlie Bronson's partner. She's a firefighter, was brought in a while ago. I have her power of attorney, can you tell me how she is?"

"The doctor isn't out yet. You can wait with the others. It probably won't be long."

"Can you tell me anything? Was she conscious when she got here? I have a right to know."

With the sigh of someone not unkind but far too busy, the woman tapped at her keyboard. "She wasn't conscious. Suspicion of smoke inhalation, but that was before any further examination. That's all I know."

Dismissed, Sugar turned away, but she wanted to demand to be taken to Charlie, scream the place down until someone let her see Charlie's face.

The Wives were all there, in the waiting area. She didn't know if they'd seen her. She didn't care. She went the other direction and found a chair as far away as she could. She had no sooner sat down than the adrenaline that had gotten her here shut off. Her legs and arms were shaking and she couldn't stop the tears of worry.

She fished a tissue out of her purse, but it was quickly soaked. She didn't have another, and didn't have the strength to fetch a paper towel from the restroom. She sat there, her face covered with tears, clutching her purse over her stomach.

"Here, honey," someone said.

She fumbled for the offered tissue, then accepted a second one. "Thank you."

"The waiting's the hardest part."

She glanced up and was surprised to find Opal McKay gazing down at her. The usually carefully constructed make-up was absent and her eyes were rimmed in red.

"Come over with us, honey. It helps not to be alone."

"I don't think I can," Sugar managed to say. Her voice sounded like old corn meal on cold marble.

Opal misunderstood her. "I'll give you an arm to lean on. It'll be okay, honey."

Don't call me honey, Sugar wanted to yell. She couldn't find the voice for it, nor a voice to say she couldn't handle being tolerated right then.

She shook her head.

"I've been here too many times not to know that it'll help to be together."

Sugar didn't know quite how Opal managed it, but she was making her unsteady way across the room, leaning heavily on Opal for support. "It's just reaction. I'm okay."

"Oh, we all know," Opal said. "It takes everything you have to get here without running someone off the road. Then you feel like they should be checking you in too. It'll ease in a bit."

They made room for her, Heather moving a little more slowly than the rest. Four frightened women and one frightened man with an austere captain trying to look resigned and hopeful all at once-they were a silent bunch. Every other minute someone would briefly share whatever news they'd been told, as if it had changed, as if they hadn't told it before.

Maha Pashmir got up to pace. "Three minutes, and then I'm going to make a scene. We should have had an update by now."

Tom Perlman said mildly, "I'd rather the doctor dealt with Judith than calming me down."

"The doctor is done by now," Maha said. "We're waiting on some factotum to deliver us a message." Her voice rose.

"Maybe someone should ask," Heather said, giving Captain Johnson a glance before turning a falsely sweet smile on Sugar. "I'm sure the captain can get information for you too."

Sugar shook so hard with anger that her vision of Heather's smug little mouth broke into little pieces.

"Enough of that," Opal snapped. "n.o.body in this hospital is going to treat Sugar any different."

"No." Sugar's lips were so tight she could hardly form the words. "No, treating me like I don't matter is what you all get to do."

There was a sharp, strained silence. I probably shouldn't have said that, Sugar thought. But what the h.e.l.l does their good opinion matter right now?

Heather was looking daggers at her, but said nothing.

"I deserve that," Opal said finally. "Stupid thing, something like that has to happen before I see sense." She cleared her throat. "When you came in I felt like Jesus was whispering in my ear that I knew full well what the right thing to do was. You were suffering just like we are, and no little piece of paper makes a bit of difference. Your Charlie, my Ron-"