Except on the bed. Mel didn't say it out loud.

Pam sat on the s.h.a.g rug in front of Mel's bookcase. "This is fine," she said. She set out the tequila bottle, a couple of shot gla.s.ses, and a salt shaker. "I like the color scheme you've chosen. Very early Italian Renaissance."

Mel joined Pam on the purple rug, tugging on the robe as she tried to cover as much of her thighs as she could. She had bought it the day after Pam had agreed to sleep in the downstairs room while the wedding party was at the inn, just in case they ran into each other in the hall. Only because it looked so perfect on the hanger. s.e.xy, but mature. Exactly the type of robe a confident, self-a.s.sured woman would wear. But now she suspected Pam would see right through the fabric to the awkward, long-dormant part of Mel with no idea how to begin a seduction scene. She looked around the room, anywhere but at Pam. She had chosen the colors because she liked the way the shades of red, blue, mauve, and gold blended together. She had picked the dark-red robe because it blended with the bedroom's color palette.

"I was trying for light, bright, and airy upstairs. I wanted something warmer and richer down here. What are those?"

Pam held up a baggie. "I found limes in your fridge. Can't have tequila shots without limes."

"They're key limes. I was going to make a pie."

"The tequila won't know the difference," Pam said with a shrug.

She poured two shots and handed one to Mel with a lime wedge.

"I haven't done this since college," Mel said. She followed Pam's lead and licked the inside of her wrist before shaking some salt on it.

She tossed a few grains over her left shoulder. She might not make it through the rest of the night without looking inexperienced, but tequila shots she could do. "As I recall, these lead directly to impaired judgment."

"That's the plan," Pam said. She winked and raised her gla.s.s.

"To you. For a successful opening weekend."

Mel downed her shot, trying to keep from making a face at the unaccustomed taste. The salt and lime didn't help much. She imagined a much sweeter taste on her tongue as she watched Pam drink her tequila. Pam's short hair was windblown from sitting outside, and Mel wanted to run her fingers through it. To lean close and smell the ocean breeze on Pam's skin. Taste the salt air where it had touched her cheek, her neck.

Pam winced when she bit into her lime. "Ugh, they're bitter," she said.

"That's why the pie recipe calls for two cans of condensed milk."

Mel tossed her rind in a nearby wastebasket. She needed something to do with her hands since she was still too nervous to initiate any physical contact. Even sitting across from Pam, she felt an energy, an intimate closeness. As if the unspoken certainty of where the night would lead was something palpable. Pam handed her another lime wedge and refilled her gla.s.s.

"Truth or dare?" Pam said as she poured herself a shot.

Mel laughed. Her imagined trysts with Pam had sometimes started with deep conversations, sometimes with no words at all but just a headlong rush into a pa.s.sionate kiss. Usually the latter. But they'd never started with silly games. She felt a little of her tension ease as she played along. "You're trotting out all the old favorites tonight. What's next, Candy Land?"

"Post office. But we'll get to that later."

Mel hesitated. She was too nervous to do more than sit across the rug from Pam and antic.i.p.ate the night she had imagined so many times since their first meeting in August. She hadn't yet mustered the courage to touch Pam's hair, or her arm, or her calf as it rested only inches from her own. Whatever the dare might be, she wasn't quite ready for it. "Truth," she said, choosing what seemed like the safer of the two.

Pam took her shot first. She felt a slight softening of lines and edges, and the lime didn't taste quite as bitter this time. She had just come up with the idea of hiding her serious questions within a childhood game. The amused smile on Mel's face indicated she had made the right decision. Keep the mood light, but still get the information she needed. Keep the evening playful and not serious, and she and Mel would both get what they wanted without being trapped by any expectations or obligations. It was all a game.

"Have you ever had s.e.x with a woman?"

Mel coughed as she swallowed her tequila. "You don't mess around, do you?" she asked when she could speak again. "Yes, I have. I had girlfriends in high school and college. But I was attracted to some guys, too, so I thought I was bi. I figured I could just switch it off and pick the more conventional option." Mel shrugged. She paused, trying to find a way to explain her decisions to Pam. A way to justify them to herself, since she'd never fully understood how she had missed something so significant. She had berated herself for years for being too blind, too unaware to figure out her own s.e.xuality. But tonight, sitting across the rug from Pam-antic.i.p.ating the night ahead before they'd kissed or even touched-she suddenly understood why.

If one of those girlfriends had been Pam? No way would Mel have gotten married. No way would she have had any doubt about who she was. She'd never been attracted to anyone the way she was to Pam.

"You have to understand, I come from a big conservative family,"

Mel said, stumbling over familiar excuses as her mind reeled with a new understanding. She needed to explain her past in a way Pam might find plausible because she didn't want to share her epiphany. If Mel spoke her thoughts out loud, Pam might worry about Mel getting too attached. But this insight wasn't about Pam, not really. Yes, Pam was the one drawing these feelings out of Mel, but this was about Mel herself. And the relief of finally being able to understand and forgive herself for the choices she'd made. For the time she had taken to get to this place.

"Five kids and fifteen grandkids," she continued. "I broke with tradition by only having Danny, and I hear about it every time I'm around my parents. One of my sisters dated women in college, too. I talked to her about it, right after Richard proposed, because I was having so many doubts. She told me how happy she was she'd made the choice to get married and how much happier I'd be with him than with a woman. Looking back, I think she might have had regrets of her own."

"And she was hoping to convince herself she had done the right thing?"

"Maybe," Mel said before she downed the shot Pam had poured for her. The sudden and quiet acceptance of her past was the real reason she felt so much more at ease, although the alcohol-how many shots now?-was helping her relax. She should have been keeping her lime peels to keep track, instead of throwing them away. She crawled over and peered in the garbage. "Three," she said as she sat down on the rug again. "What was I saying? Oh, yes. It took me a couple years to figure out I had made a big mistake. By then I had Danny, so I tried to make things work. Marriage counselors, weekends away, you name it. And then I had a conference with Danny's second-grade teacher. She was lovely."

Pam almost lost track of Mel's story as she watched her crawl on her hands and knees over to the garbage can, the curve of her a.s.s just visible below the robe's hem. Her long thighs, tight and firm, begged Pam to grip them and pull Mel against her. But an unexpected and biting jealousy drew her attention back to what Mel was saying. A lovely teacher. One who made Mel aware of an undeniable attraction to women. One who had taken Mel right there on her desk during their conference? Pam had wanted to make sure Mel wasn't completely inexperienced, that she wouldn't overreact to their night together and think the physical satisfaction meant more than it should. She had her wish. She wasn't Mel's first. So why did the information make her want to go smash the lovely teacher's car windows?

"You had an affair?" Pam prompted. She tried to keep jealousy out of her voice, not wanting Mel to misinterpret it as judgment. She had a feeling Mel had explained why she had married, why she had stayed married, to herself and others far too many times. Pam didn't care what road Mel had taken to get here, to this room on this night.

She was here, and nothing else mattered.

"No. But I told Richard about my feelings for her. We were comfortable together by then, so we decided to stay together for Danny. No dating outside the marriage. No pressure within it. I trusted him and gave up so many years, so much of what I wanted for myself. Never again."

Pam swallowed. With relief. With renewed arousal as Mel stretched her legs out, so close to Pam's. So smooth and bare and close. Mel had drawn inward while she talked, pulling her knees to her chest, but now she seemed to relax. Pam mirrored her more open body language, ready to leave the past behind and get back to the promise of the night ahead.

"Your turn," she said. Dare me. Dare me to kiss you because I need to. Soon.

"Truth," Mel said instead. "Now you have to answer a question, too."

"I don't get to choose dare?" Pam asked. Mel shook her head.

Pam wanted to move forward, shrug off the nagging images of Mel with her college girlfriends and flirting with Danny's teacher. Get to the s.e.x so she didn't have to wonder why she felt sad when she heard Mel admit once again that she'd never commit to someone, would never allow anyone to take her freedom away and make her live with compromise. The whole conversation should have made Pam relieved. Mel had made the ideal confession. Pam wasn't sure why she felt disappointed.

"Why sea gla.s.s?" Mel asked, breaking into Pam's thoughts.

Art? Why hadn't Mel asked about s.e.x, Pam's past flings, her first time? Something less personal, less revealing. But Mel had shared too much tonight for Pam to ignore her question. She owed Mel some sort of answer. "My grandparents took me on vacation to the ocean every summer when I was a kid. My grandfather would spend hours hunting for gla.s.s on the beach, and he got me hooked." She answered as if Mel wanted to know why she collected it, not why she used it in her art. "I loved the colors and the feel of the smooth gla.s.s in my hands.

The best part was imagining it whole again. What shape it was, who used it and for what."

"Sounds like you were very close to your grandfather. What about your parents?"

"We had a good relationship while I was growing up." Pam straightened her legs and crossed her ankles before she topped off her gla.s.s again. Family questions she could handle. The answers weren't always pleasant, but Pam could face them. She drank the shot and was chewing on her lime when she realized she had forgotten the salt. "I was a real tomboy and Dad loved it. He was my softball coach and drove me to all my basketball games. We'd go rock climbing together.

Fun stuff. He didn't care at all that I wasn't girly, so I thought he'd be okay when I came out to him in high school. He blew up. Couldn't even stay in the room with me so we could talk."

"And your mom?" Mel shifted her legs so they were barely touching Pam's.

Pam tried to focus on her story and not on the physical contact of Mel's bare legs. Even through the denim of her jeans, the light touch made her skin feel electric. "I think Mom would have been okay eventually. We were never really close. She tried to get us to reconcile a few times, but she wouldn't go against my dad's decision to cut me out of his life. By then, my grandmother had died, but Grandpa took me in, and I lived with him through high school and college. He and my dad never spoke after that. Because of me."

Mel put her hand on Pam's ankle and squeezed gently. "That wasn't your fault. Your grandfather made a difficult decision, but it was the right one. He must have loved seeing you use the sea gla.s.s on your paintings."

Pam hesitated. Full circle back to her art. Didn't the game only require her to answer one question truthfully, not a whole slew of them? She blamed the tequila for making her follow Mel's change in subject. And she blamed Mel's hand, still resting on her ankle. Warm.

Safe. Touching her, touching her pain, in a way that was intimate but not s.e.xy. Pam wanted to get back to s.e.xy. "He had pa.s.sed away before I came here and started making mosaics. He left everything to me, including the beach house. I had just gone through a bad breakup, so I moved here. I don't know why I started putting the gla.s.s on my paintings like that. I haven't done many of them."

"How long ago was this?"

"Eight years. I was a graduate student when I met Diane. She was my advisor. We started an affair while I was working on my degree, and we moved in together right after I graduated. She had a son, just a baby then. Kevin." Pam shook her head and the room tilted slightly.

Why was she talking about Kevin? She looked at the four lime peels lined up by the salt shaker. Too many. "Anyway, I painted portraits as a career. Made a good living at it, too. Diane asked me to leave when Kevin was three, and I came here."

Mel reached for the tequila bottle. "You do portraits? Maybe you could-"

"No, Mel," Pam said sharply. She'd do the mosaics. No portraits of her or Danny or whomever else Mel had been about to name.

No matter how s.e.xy Mel was or how persuasive she could be. Pam could barely piece together her fractured visions. Scratch paint onto a canvas. Stick on some gla.s.s. But portraits meant staring a subject in the eyes, letting them into her soul, where they could reach her most vulnerable places and do the most damage.

She used to be open, used to enjoy the connection she'd form even with strangers when she felt some inexplicable urge to paint them. It had been her calling, her way of pulling the essence out of a person and freezing it in time. Permanence. A fallacy Pam no longer trusted. She cared about Mel, was proud of her, admired her. She wanted to know Mel's story, to know her body, to know every fantasy and desire she kept so carefully hidden inside. Trace her outline. Not use brushes and oils to reach any deeper than friendship and s.e.x.

"Don't ask me that. I don't paint portraits any more. In fact, I rarely paint at all. Until your commission, I'd only done about one mosaic a year."

"Oh. I'm sorry. I had no idea."

Pam rubbed her eyes wearily. She should leave. Her brilliant plan to use tequila to help her seduce Mel had backfired. The only thing the alcohol had lubricated was her willingness to talk. Like being in a d.a.m.ned confessional.

"Lie down," Mel said.

"I really should...I need to..." Pam wasn't sure what she needed.

To get out of this warm room. Get away from the sadness she had seen in Mel's eyes when she talked about her marriage and again when Pam blurted out the story of her own messed-up past. This was nothing like the silly, playful foreplay she had been hoping for.

"Lie down," Mel insisted. She moved so she was kneeling next to Pam.

Pam leaned back on her elbows and then finally rested back on the rug. She closed her eyes. She had to stop this, go back to her room. Or better yet, go back to her own home. The gaping hole in her house seemed preferable to the chaotic emotions she felt as Mel put a little wedge of lime in her mouth and bent over to lick the side of Pam's neck. The bitter citrus stung Pam's lips where they were chapped from the sea air. Even the sprinkle of salt a.s.saulted Pam's nerve endings, and she arched her neck in an involuntary reaction to the sensation. Her skin felt too fragile, too paper-thin to protect her from the abrasive touch of the world, of her memories.

She kept her eyes shut, sinking into herself, but she could feel Mel leaning over her. Pam slid her hands under the sleeves of Mel's robe and anch.o.r.ed them on Mel's bare upper arms, strong and alive and protecting, braced on either side of Pam's head just as she'd imagined that afternoon. She could smell the intoxicating combination of roses and tequila when Mel licked the salt off her neck. The light stroke of Mel's tongue pulled Pam back to the surface, back to all the places where her skin was in contact with Mel's. Her thoughts were jumbled with family, loss, pain, but all of the pieces coalesced and then drifted away when Mel's mouth met hers. A brief kiss as Mel sucked the lime from between Pam's lips. Pam felt all of her awareness hone in on the momentary connection. Mel's lips burned, but in a good way. Pam was wet in an instant, her arousal more intense because she had been so raw only seconds before. She was soothed now. Coming alive again.

Chapter Sixteen.

Mel sat back on her heels. She chewed the lime and then flicked the peel into the trash can while she watched Pam.

Mel had almost lost her to the deep place she went when life or her past was too much to bear. She still didn't understand Pam completely, but she was learning more about her. About the way she experienced the world-as if it had different dimensions, more intensity, than it did for other people. Mel's shyness, her worry about seeming like an inept virgin, disappeared.

The contact and the kiss had been for Pam, but now Mel wanted more. One quick taste of Pam's skin wasn't enough. She needed Pam back in the room, back in the present, because she wanted to kiss her again. Not to rescue Pam this time, but to stir up the pa.s.sion Mel felt building deep in her belly. Pam was lying so still Mel might have worried she had pa.s.sed out if it wasn't for the smile twitching at the corner of her lips. Without warning, Pam sat up so she was face-to-face with Mel. Mel caught herself before she moved away in surprise at the sudden movement. She licked her lips, antic.i.p.ating a kiss, but Pam only brushed her nose gently against Mel's.

"Your turn," Pam said. "Lie down."

Mel hesitated. She was comfortable leaning over Pam and touching her. But to lie back and be touched was a different matter altogether. She hadn't been put in this position for a long time. Not just s.e.x, but letting another person take control, take care of her.

Wife, mother, scout leader, PTA member. And now plumber, interior decorator, innkeeper. Never pa.s.sive, never nurtured or cherished.

Even in her fantasies, she had always been the active one, making love to Pam, deriving pleasure by satisfying Pam's needs. But the dark look in Pam's eyes, the smile that promised such wonderful things, gave Mel the strength to let go just a little bit. Pam wanted her, wanted to take care of her.

Mel slowly lowered herself onto her back. They had shared such small touches so far, featherlight and fleeting, but her body felt as aroused as she would have expected after an hour of heavy petting.

She had been without any s.e.xual contact for so long she worried she would overreact just to Pam's nearness, let alone her touch. She tightened her throat, holding back a whimper as Pam licked the swell of her breast where it was revealed by the open neck of her robe.

Pam's breath on the damp spot where her tongue had been and the barely perceptible sprinkle of salt on her chest made Mel's nipples hard. Pam teasingly dipped her index finger in Mel's mouth before inserting the lime wedge.

Too much. Mel felt too much to simply lie there. Accepting and responding as Pam's tongue trailed over the rasping grains of salt.

She raised her head slightly, wanting Pam's kiss, wanting to set the pace. But Pam's mouth barely touched hers as she captured the lime.

How much more teasing could her body take before it shattered into a million pieces? Pam moved away, but not far, and she used her teeth to squeeze juice across Mel's throat and between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s before she dropped her head to lap it up.

The shift from skimming contact to the determined pressure from Pam's tongue and mouth as she sucked on Mel's neck jolted her senses to full arousal. The relief of action, the promised roughness of Pam's palm against her cheek, tore away the last of Mel's anxiety, her struggle for control. Her fingers gripped Pam's hair, tugging her closer still, and her body arched toward Pam's mouth. Pam licked an errant drop from under Mel's ear before she finally, after what seemed to Mel like an eternity of waiting, raised her head and kissed Mel fully on the lips. Mel opened her mouth to Pam's insistent tongue, and the tastes of fruit and tequila and Pam filled her. She felt Pam shift her weight so her hips pressed into Mel's. One of Pam's knees slid between her legs, pressing against her, and the rasp of denim across her bare, wet lips nearly made Mel come.

Pam eased the pressure of her leg, wanting to prolong the feeling of having Mel squirming underneath her. She moved lower, impatiently yanking the belt of Mel's robe so the knot loosened and she could move the silky material aside and expose Mel's b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Mel had been fighting without moving a muscle. Holding back. But when Pam sucked a tight nipple into her mouth, she finally felt Mel release her breath and completely let go. Mel's moans and the audible catch in her breath turned Pam on even more, and she switched to lavish attention on Mel's other breast. She bit her nipple lightly and felt Mel arch toward her. Pam's belly rested between Mel's legs, and she could feel Mel's warmth burning into her skin, Mel's wetness soaking through the thin layer of T-shirt between them.

Pam kissed Mel's stomach and skimmed her hands along Mel's sides. Her fingers roamed over the satiny robe, using the material to caress Mel's torso and b.r.e.a.s.t.s before she pushed the robe away and let her bare hands repeat the movements. Mel was alive under her hands.

Mel's rib cage rose and fell with her gasping breath, her muscles contracted, and the tiny hairs on her skin shivered at Pam's touch.

Pam pushed back onto her knees and met Mel's eyes. Without needing words, she asked for permission and received it before she pressed Mel's thighs wider apart and dropped her head to taste her.

Long strokes of her tongue, and Mel's hands were back on her head, anchoring her in place. Rapid flicks, and Mel's legs wrapped around her in a tight hug. A firm pressure as her lips closed around Mel's c.l.i.t and sucked, and Mel's hips rose as her o.r.g.a.s.m took her. The tequila, only the tequila, made the room spin and tilt for Pam as Mel shuddered under her mouth with a wordless cry, her grip on Pam's hair slackening to a gentle caress. Pam was about to slide up and take Mel in her arms, but Mel stood up instead. She looked a little wobbly on her feet, but she dropped her robe and held out her hand to Pam.

Mel wasn't even tempted to succ.u.mb to either the alcohol or her o.r.g.a.s.m and take a break, rest on the floor with Pam. Now it was her turn. Finally. She could smell Pam-her arousal, the scent of the ocean she brought into this room. Mel needed to taste her. She led Pam across the room, aiming in the general direction of her bed, until she b.u.mped into it. She helped Pam pull her T-shirt off and then kissed her. The flavors of tequila and lime had been completely replaced by s.e.x, by the taste of Mel herself, and she reluctantly stopped kissing Pam long enough to unzip her jeans and slide them down her legs.

She pushed Pam into a seated position on the edge of the bed and braced a hand on either side of Pam's hips so she could bend down and kiss her again.

No more hesitating or teasing. Mel felt transformed, as if she had emerged from a storm. Energized. Why had she been so worried about getting her mouth on Pam? Any concern about what to do, how to do it, slipped away. She knew only Pam's desire, her arousal. Her need to find some sort of physical and emotional release. Mel dropped to her knees and roughly pushed Pam's legs apart. She took Pam in her mouth-the most natural thing in the world-and felt her own arousal resurface as Pam's c.l.i.t hardened under her tongue. She felt powerful as she heard Pam gasp and whimper, and when she sensed Pam had leaned back on the bed. And she felt triumphant when Pam called her name and surged against her.

She climbed onto the bed and kissed Pam, somehow managing to pull the covers back and get them between the sheets without breaking contact. Mel finally eased away with a sigh and lay back on her pillow with Pam nestled at her side. Pam slowly kissed her way along Mel's collarbone.

"Mm, that was nice," Mel said, her eyes closed. Nice? f.u.c.king incredible. Worth the wait. Definitely worth the wait. Mel kept those thoughts inside, not wanting to frighten Pam off with any melodrama.

"You wore me out."

"Wore you out? Are you kidding?" Pam asked between kisses.

She licked Mel's neck where the stickiness of lime remained. "We're just warming up."

Pam woke with Mel in her arms, sheets tangled around her legs and a growing concern her head might split in half if she moved too quickly. She took deep breaths and attempted to will the room to stop spinning around her. She wanted to get up, use the bathroom, drink some water, but she was distracted by the feel of Mel pressed against her. She usually wanted to escape as soon as possible after a night of s.e.x. And when she planned it well enough, her getaway was drama-free because whoever she was with needed to pack and check out of her hotel. But today was different. She lay still and enjoyed the small movements Mel made as she gradually stirred awake.