"Thank you." The gown had already slipped from her shoulders when she rose, and she held it to the front of her as she removed her watch and bracelet, then her earrings. She didn't know if the exposed curve of her back and hint that the dress would fall to the ground if she let go was anyone's definition of s.e.xy. All that mattered was that her body made Linda's gaze follow her with hunger and desire.

"You're teasing me."

"Am I?" Marissa let the gown slide to her waist and she slowly removed her bra.

"You know you are."

"Is there something you'd rather I do?" She let her bra fall from her fingers and shinnied the dress farther down until it rested just at her hips.

"G.o.d, no."

"I don't want my dress to wrinkle." Turning her back, she lowered the dress until she could step out of it. She would bet money Linda's gaze was on the white silk panties she wore, and she smiled to herself. No one had ever made her feel as powerfully attractive. She hung the dress in the closet and finally turned around. Linda had taken off the T-shirt, and for a moment Marissa couldn't breathe.

"Yummy-yum-yum. Worth waiting for."

Recovering her wits, she crossed the short distance to the bed. "One last thing to take off."

"Need help with that?"

"Oh, yes." Marissa adopted her best impression of a Southern Belle. "Why, I just can't figure out how to take them off all by my little lonesome."

"Easy." Linda practically purred as she slid to the edge of the bed. "You use your teeth."

Linda's unrestrained intensity never failed to melt Marissa's confidence into an ache of desire. No longer the stalking tigress, she felt abruptly the prey. Linda first nipped at her thigh before she bit into the front of her panties and pulled them down. Marissa cupped Linda's face as heat from Linda's breath seemed to float over her entire body. With a shiver of delight, she helped lower her panties until they pooled around her ankles and she could kick them off. Linda opened her arms and Marissa settled into the shelter of their encircling strength.

b.r.e.a.s.t.s, stomachs and thighs melted together as knees sorted themselves out with the ease of familiarity. The scratch of Linda's nails along the inside of one thigh drew a low moan from the back of Marissa's throat.

"Is this what you want, Marissa?"

She nodded, gaze locked with Linda's. When Linda dipped between her legs, Marissa felt herself falling into the well of Linda's eyes. Entwined on their sides, Linda seemed intent on kissing Marissa until morning while her fingertips teased lightly. It was as languid as their lovemaking had been feverish the night before. With each new kiss and whispered affection Marissa grew more and more frantic for Linda's touch inside her.

"I love the way you can move for me," Linda whispered. Her hand shifted and Marissa felt the long, welcome stroke of her fingers. "I love the way your body feels against mine."

With a sudden spasm, Marissa arched hard against Linda. The layers of sensation that radiated out from Linda's hand brought a tingle of electricity wherever her skin touched Linda's. There were stars behind her eyes, then all of that light folded inward until she glowed from the inside out.

"We could go to the lip sync contest," Marissa offered sleepily quite some time later.

"Sure."

Marissa knew that voice. Linda was asleep, but her brain's autopilot would mumble appropriate responses if Marissa kept talking.

"Will you get me a s.p.a.ce shuttle for my birthday?"

"Sure."

Marissa laughed softly to herself, then rose to turn out the lights. She studied the sweep of Linda's hair over the pillow before faint moonlight from the porthole replaced the last lamp's glow.

She slipped back into the circle of Linda's arms and melted at the warmth of Linda behind her. "Go dancing with me tomorrow night?"

"Sure."

"Marry me?"

"Sure."

"Love me forever?"

"Abso-freaking-lutely."

"You're not asleep."

"I was."

Marissa fondly tickled the arm around her waist. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"All the tomorrows."

Linda pulled her a lithe closer. "Finders keepers, sweetheart. You're mine now."

Lip Sync Karin Kallmaker "She's doing a great job selling that song."

Dishra turned from her adoration of the woman on stage to give Brandy an agreeing smile. "It doesn't hurt that there's a strong resemblance. Add the wig, dress and the real Mariah Carey's voice, and she does put on a perfect illusion."

"You work wonders with the wigs. Peggy Lee is perfect."

Her focus back on the woman moving like a diva in the spotlight, Dishra said, "Wait until you see ABBA."

Brandy chuckled appreciatively as she moved on. Dishra hoped she got hired by LOVE-she was a delight to work with. Then she forgot all about such matters as "Mariah" exhorted the crowd to shake it off, all the while strutting in five-inch stilettos and a body-molded gown that left little to anyone's imagination.

Certainly it left nothing to Dishra's. Oozing s.e.x appeal, lip syncing with confidence and dancing with abandon, the woman on stage moved like a real G.o.ddess. Dishra had always had a thing for Mariah. She'd always been convinced that if only Mariah met the right woman, she'd be singing an entirely different tune. Dishra had always believed, from the time she was about twelve, that she was the right woman for Mariah.

The crowd was into the number, cheering at the defiant, "Baby, I'm Gone" and applauding madly as the contestant left the stage. As she breezed past Dishra she gave her a look that was pure siren. All that exuberant lesbian energy in the room- Mariah seemed to have gotten infected. At the door to what served as a quasi-dressing room, Mariah gave her one more look over her shoulder.

Heart pounding, Dishra got Peggy Lee into position, checked that the blond page boy wig was still on straight, then followed Mariah into the chaos of the room set aside for Love's overflow use. The steady pulse of "Fever" followed after her even when the door had closed. Appropriate, she thought.

"Thank you for all your help," Mariah said. She put up a hand to remove the wig, but Dishra caught it and pulled the surprised woman deeper into the room. Behind the stacked high boxes of T-shirts and CDs for sale, she found a dark corner and pushed her personal diva up against the wall.

"I don't care if this gets me fired. I want to make you sing for me."

Mariah resisted until Dishra's lips were on hers, then the fever seemed to catch her too. Somebody had loved Mariah wrong, and Dishra was going to love her right.

"Yeah, kiss me," she whispered, and Dishra was happy to oblige.

The sun was lighting up the daytime from the stage speakers when she felt Mariah's hands on hers, guiding them around her hips to her a.s.s, then up to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Dishra's head was spinning.

That soft, sweet voice asked, "How did you know what I wanted?"

It was not a moment to be shy. They didn't have much time before she had to get ABBA lined up for the stage. "I've always known what you wanted. And what you needed." She yanked up the dress and ma.s.saged die soft insides of two perfect thighs. She worked down the pantyhose just far enough, then boldly pushed her hand in.

"Oh, baby, that's right, that's what I need. G.o.d, how did you know?"

Grinning, Dishra angled her palm up to a wonderfully prominent c.l.i.t while she wiggled her fingers, getting them wet and ready. From her back pocket she removed a small packet of lube. "Do you know what I'm going to do to you?"

"Whatever it is, you know I want it."

She tore the packet open with her teeth as Peggy sang about Romeo and Juliet. With a shift of her hand, the tips of two fingers sank into the increasingly slippery and sodden woman. This was her diva, her songbird G.o.ddess, and it was perfectly natural to get down on her knees to worship at the only shrine that mattered.

With a growl she locked her lips around the beautifully peaked and straining c.l.i.t, and the noise Mariah made was the kind of music Dishra had wanted to hear for years. She squeezed the packet of lube and knew some of it missed her hand, but most of it went where she wanted. She was slick past her wrist, and Mariah might say she didn't know what was about to happen, but from the way she planted the stilettos and spread her legs, it was clear she had expectations.

Captain Smith and Pocahontas were burning in the fever as Dishra pushed all of her fingers into Mariah's delicious p.u.s.s.y. She was getting sweet wetness on her shirt, on Mariah's dress, but nothing was going to stop her from giving the moaning woman what she needed.

"Sing for me, baby," she said, low and intense, as she tucked her thumb and pushed firmly.

"Oh, oh, oh, baby!"

There was no time to pause in awe at the sight of the beautiful black-fringed c.u.n.t clasped around her hand, to wonder what an artist would make of the hues of cocoa, caramel and rich, l.u.s.trous red. This wasn't art, it was s.e.x, and the way her hand was being squeezed and molded, obviously needed and enjoyed, had blood pounding in Dishra's ears.

She leaned in to slip her other arm around Mariah's hips and pushed gently up, once, twice, then harder. "I'm going to f.u.c.k you right off those pretty shoes."

Long fingernails dug into her scalp, then slid away as Dishra's tongue flicked over the swollen, gleaming c.l.i.t.

"That's right, you f.u.c.k me. f.u.c.k me good. That's what I need, d.a.m.n it."

Every thrust of her arm was met by responsive, powerful muscles that pulled her hand in deeper, then threatened to push her out.

"No, you don't. I'm not done. I like watching my wrist go in, and then slide back out. You are so incredibly beautiful. You do give me fever, baby."

Mariah grappled for some kind of balance against nearby boxes after Dishra went in so hard and deep the stilettos slipped. "Harder," Mariah begged. "Harder!"

"Come on my hand." Dishra sucked the hard c.l.i.t between her lips again as Mariah finally sang the high note she'd always imagined. Mariah's c.u.n.t shuddered around Dishra's hand until she pushed it out with a hoa.r.s.e cry. She surged against Dishra's mouth, violently scrubbing her c.l.i.t across Dishra's chin and lips. Her tight curls reddened Dishra's cheeks. Tomorrow, she thought, I'll look like I got too much sun, but this was a much, much more lovely way to burn.

"Jesus Christ," Mariah gasped as she started to go limp.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I have to go." The applause was rising, and Dishra knew ABBA was milling around off stage, wondering what to do.

G.o.d, I'm a mess, she realized, wet and sticky from my nose to my fingertips. She grabbed a T-shirt from the defects and discards pile and wiped her face and arm as she ran for the door. Peggy was just coming off stage, flushed and pleased.

"You were great. Wait right here for the results after our last act. Girls, stand right here, now do your entrance!" Dishra pushed the trio of jump suited platinum blondes toward the spotlight, then hurried back to the little room where she'd left that hot, beautiful woman.

When she opened the door she saw her girlfriend, Becka, perched on a stack of boxes. One stiletto dangled from her fingertips as she ma.s.saged her toes.

With a lopsided grin, she asked, "Did you make it in time?"

"Yeah, baby, just in time." Aching with affection and grat.i.tude, Dishra pulled Becka to her feet to hug her.

"You smell like s.e.x," she murmured into Dishra's chest.

"So do you."

"Not as much as I'd like." She leaned back to give Dishra another of those looks. "Mariah got really f.u.c.ked, baby, but now I'd like something of my own."

The stage speakers pulsed out "Waterloo."

"I promise to love you evermore," Dishra said, "but this is pure Top Forty, baby, and the song is only three minutes, including the applause. I can't do everything I want in what's left."

"You can kiss me then."

No hardship, that. Dishra brushed her lips to Becka's, then went in for a long, wet kiss that promised more later. "Thank you, darling, for dressing up for me."

"It was all my pleasure."

The singers were finally facing their Waterloo, and Dishra knew she had to let go of Becka. "Why don't you join the others backstage when you've caught your breath?"

"Okay."

At the door, Dishra looked back to watch Becka slip her delicate foot into the killer stiletto.

Becka looked up and grinned. "Honey? We can keep the outfit until tomorrow, can't we?"

There was only one thing to say to her pa.s.sionate, playful girlfriend in reply to such a perfect idea.

"I adore you."

Easy Loving Radclyffe "How many propositions did you get while I was in line for the restroom?" Honor Blake sat down on the end of the lounger while a few hundred women danced and parried on the pool deck.

"Not a single one." Quinn Maguire pulled Honor higher between her legs and leisurely traced her tongue along the edge of Honor's lip. "I was just sitting here missing you."

"Really?" Honor skimmed her mouth over Quinn's ear. "Blonde, twenty, big b.r.e.a.s.t.s, thong bikini."

"Oh," Quinn murmured. "Her."

"Uh huh." Honor leaned back, surveying her lover. Even wearing loose khaki shorts and her favorite T-shirt bearing the name of the girls' soccer team she coached, Quinn looked deadly s.e.xy stretched out under the stars. Honor had observed more than a few women taking note of Quinn's Black Irish good looks and athletic body. "Did she drool anywhere?"

Laughing, Quinn lifted aside the red-gold strands of Honor's shoulder length hair with one hand and nuzzled her neck. "She asked me to dance, and I told her I reserved that pleasure for my wife."

Honor tilted her head back so Quinn could kiss the spot below her ear that always made her instantly wet. Not that she needed any special encouragement this week. The excitement of finally being on vacation, just the two of them, left her constantly h.o.r.n.y. Being able to have Quinn whenever she wanted only made her hungrier for her. "You'd better have told her you save all the pleasures for me."

"I think the word wife did the trick."

"I guess your wedding band isn't big enough." Honor nipped at Quinn's chin. "Come on. Want to dance again? It's almost eight back home, and we'll need to head inside soon to call Arly."

"So let's just make out for a few minutes instead." Quinn shifted her focus to the area exposed by the open b.u.t.tons of Honor's sleeveless blouse and kissed the soft triangle of skin between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Oh, no." Laughing, Honor braced both hands against Quinn's shoulders and pushed her away. "We didn't travel four thousand miles to do what we could just as easily do in our backyard."

"With half the neighborhood, one mother-in-law and a nine-year-old daughter likely to traipse through at any moment, there's no way we can do in the yard what I have in mind right now." Quinn grabbed Honor's hand and pushed it under her T-shirt, trapping it against her stomach. Reflexively, Honor stroked Quinn's abdomen, coaxing the muscles to contract. Quinn leaned her head back with a satisfied smile. "That's a start."