“I can’t think when you’re this close,” KT groaned. “When you say these things, all 1 want is to be inside you. Pia, God, I want you so much.”

“Feel me,” Pia whispered, her arms tightening around KT’s neck again, her lips hungry on KT’s mouth.

KT was lost. She had no defense against Pia’s words repeating in her mind. I’ve fallen in love with you. Pia’s voice. Her own heart, echoing. With supreme effort, she broke the kiss. “Let’s go.”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Your girlfriend’s really hot,” a small, tight-bodied Asian woman in skintight black Lycra slacks and a spandex top nicely displaying her small, high breasts commented to Allie. Bri had just left to investigate the house under the guise of searching for fresh beers.

“Yeah.” Allie sipped her beer and regarded the woman nonchalantly. “This is a kinda weird deal, you know? The secret code phone calls and stuff.” She laughed and sipped her beer again. “After all, it’s just a party.”

“Well, you know, there’s a lot of stuff hanging around and you don’t want just anybody crashing.” The tone of the woman’s voice indicated that she considered the party to be an elite gathering.

Allie shrugged. “I suppose although I haven’t seen anything too special in the way of party favors yet,”

“Is this your first time?”

“Hardly,” Allie snorted. Then she gave the other woman a knowing smile. “But I haven’t been around this circuit before. Just down by Providence. Do they have quality stuff?”

To Allie’s surprise, the smaller woman edged closer and snaked her arm around Allie’s waist before rubbing her cheek against Allie’s arm, almost like a cat twining itself around its human. “Mmm, usually.” She nuzzled her face against the curve of Allie’s breast. “I know who to ask. We can party, the three of us.”

“I want to know what I’m getting,” Allie said softly, stroking her fingers up and down the woman’s bare arm and shifting so that the woman’s hand settled on her butt. She didn’t want her to feel the transmitter. “I don’t want to get numbed out, you know? Especially if we’re going to play.”

“Play at what?” Bri asked as she edged up to them in the crowd. She caught the quick flicker of caution in Allie’s eyes and leaned in to kiss Allie on the mouth. Then she put her arm around Allie’s waist between the strange woman’s hand and the transmitter. “Who’s your friend, babe?”

“Hey, baby,” Allie purred to Bri, still caressing the other woman. “This is…” She turned her head and brushed her lips over the Asian woman’s ear. “What’s your name, beautiful?”

“Tamara.” Tamara extended an arm and trailed her fingers down the center of Bri’s chest and abdomen until she reached Bri’s belt. Then she curled her ringers inside. “Hi.”

Bri nodded warily. “We don’t usually do threesomes.”

“I can just watch,” Tamara replied, rocking her pelvis against Allie’s thigh. “Or I can help you do her or you can both do me. Whatever works.”

“Tamara says she can get us what we came for, baby,” Allie said soothingly. She kissed Bri’s neck, then along her jaw. When she saw Tamara’s hand drift lower down Bri’s fly, she caught Tamara’s wrist. “Ask permission first, honey. That’s private property.”

“Sorry,” Tamara whispered, looking anything but. “You want me to score us something? I can get us E or coke just about anything you want,”

Allie looked at Bri. “Come on, baby. Let’s play.”

Bri hesitated, then finally nodded. “Let’s all go get it together. If this is gonna be a night to remember, I wanna be sure I do.”

“What?” Nelson whispered urgently when he saw Reese stiffen and frown.

“They’re about to score the drugs,” Reese muttered. She was a little uneasy about the third party being involved. Allie and Bri had been particularly careful in not suggesting anything that could be considered entrapment, more careful than she would have expected them to be in light of their inexperience. Nevertheless, the sexual propositions might come back to haunt them if they weren’t careful. “They’ve hooked up with another woman who’s going to make the connection for them. I don’t think she’s a dealer. She’s just interested in…them.”

“Them?” Nelson asked, confused. When Reese said nothing, he bunched his shoulders and muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

“We’re going to have to be very careful with a civilian in the middle of this if we make the arrests inside.”

“What about”

Reese held up a hand, interrupting him, the fingers of her left hand pressing the earpiece as if to make the transmission clearer. “Call Wellfleet. It’s going down any minute.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

KT pulled Pia down beside her on the wooden love seat that swung gently on Pia’s front porch, suspended from ceiling hooks by thick braided ropes. “Let’s talk for a second.”

“We’ve been talking every day, sometimes several times a day,” Pia said, her voice silky and low as she pulled her legs up onto the cushions and curled against KT’s side, “for almost a month.” She wrapped an arm around KT’s waist and nestled her head against KT’s shoulder. “And as much as I enjoy your mind, I’m more interested in your body right now.”

Despite her persistent unease, KT laughed, rubbing her cheek against Pia’s hair. “How is it that two weeks ago you told me quite emphatically that you weren’t going to sleep with me?”

“Two weeks ago you needed every ounce of your strength to get the drugs out of your system and your feet back under you,” Pia said softly. “You needed me to be your friend then, and I…I wasn’t ready to want you this much.”

“And what about now?”

“We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” KT murmured, realizing it was true and knowing that the last time she’d felt that way with a lover, it had been Tory. Thinking of Tory reminded her forcefully of just how bad she was at relationships. Still, Pia’s nearness invoked a familiar stirring in her body the growing knot of tension deep down inside her that always came when she held a woman, smelled a woman, imagined the glide of smooth skin under her fingertips. It was a hunger, a longing so profound to immerse herself in the mystery and wonder of all that was female that she’d often followed her desire without thinking. Now, when a beautiful woman a woman she wanted as fiercely as any she’d ever known told her not once, but repeatedly, that she wanted her, she did nothing. She held herself back while her body screamed for release, aching and close to breaking. And still, she waited. “Yes, we’re friends, That’s why I haven’t touched you, when I want to so much.”

Pia shifted until she could look up into KT’s face, shadowed in the moonlight. “Let me get this straight You don’t want to go to bed with me because you like me.”

No, because I love you. KT caressed Pia’s side, sliding her palm up and down the curve of her flank and over her hip. “You’ve waited all this time, Pia. Waited for something….someone…special.” She drew a deep breath. “I’m not special.”

“Tell me why you think you aren’t.” Pia rested her hand in the center of KT’s chest and slowly circled her fingertips, loving the subtle tensing of KT’s body when she touched her. She’d been aware of other women’s excitement before, of their need, but she’d never thrilled to the knowledge that she had created it. Not like she did with this woman. KT’s desire made her feel powerful in a way she had never experienced, powerful and humbled at the same time. It was all she could do to refrain from sliding her leg over KT’s, from cupping KT’s small, firm breast, merely millimeters away from her burning palm. “Tell me what I’m missing, because I think you’re very special.”

“I’ve spent most of my life meeting someone else’s expectations and never even questioning if those goals were my own. In the process, I was so focused on satisfying my own needs that I destroyed the most important thing in my life.” KT leaned her head against the wooden seat back and stared at the darkness overhead. “I didn’t even know it at the time, that’s how out of touch I was with everything that should’ve mattered.”

Pia didn’t answer; she merely held KT tightly.

“Since then well, let’s say I’ve been selfish when it comes to relationships.”

“Did you make promises you didn’t keep?”

KT shook her head.

“Did you lie about your feelings?”

“No,” KT rasped.

“Were you only concerned with your own pleasure?”

KT laughed wryly. “I don’t know, I don’t think so.”

Pia kissed KT softly, then drew back until she could look into her eyes. “Then I don’t think you’ve been selfish. And I’m not asking for promises.”

KT brushed her fingers through Pia’s hair and closed her fist gently around the heavy richness of it. “You deserve promises.”

“Would you be so worried if I hadn’t told you that I’ve never slept with anyone before?”

“I don’t know,” KT answered truthfully. “But you did tell me. And one thing I know for sure. I never want you to regret anything that happens between us.”

“You have to trust me when I say that I won’t.” Pia shifted until she straddled KT’s thighs, her knees on the cushions on either side. She framed KT’s face in her hands and lowered her head until their mouths met. When KT’s hand came to her waist, then under her blouse to tremble against her flesh, Pia murmured, “Please.”

“Well, you three look like you’re ready for some real partying,” Karl said with forced friendliness as he surveyed Allie, Bri, and Tamara.

“We were ready when we walked in the door,” Allie replied in a tone halfway between sarcastic and seductive. Tamara’s hand was still firmly attached to her hip, and she was afraid that any second the other woman was going to take a bite out of something vital. “And so far, all we’ve seen is beer. Pissy beer, actually.”