Return to Me Read online

  Return to Me

  How Sweet It Is, Book 3

  Fiona Zedde

  Red Hills Publishing

  Copyright Notice

  Copyright © 2012 by Fiona Zedde

  * * *

  All rights reserved.

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  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Newsletter Sign-up

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Thank You

  Fiona Online

  How Sweet, the series

  A Taste of Sin Excerpt

  Bliss Excerpt

  Also by Fiona Zedde

  About the Author

  Newsletter Sign-up

  To keep up with the latest releases, get free reads, plus deleted scenes, subscribe to my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/bjpDDr

  Chapter One

  All the light in the world outside their door was gone. Claudia’s corner of Coconut Grove was shut down, quiet. It was nothing like the vibrant energy of Rémi’s South Beach neighborhood, but on some nights Rémi preferred this. Claudia on her side of their bed in her thin, long nightgown. Student papers in two neat piles on either side of the wood grain lap desk Rémi had bought her on a whim. The soft scratch of her pen across the paper as she graded her students’ efforts. Light from the bedside lamp spilled over Claudia’s silver hair, the bare line of her neck sloping down into copper satin.

  Rémi watched her lover, glasses perched on her nose, reading through the shrinking pile of student papers. Occasionally, Claudia’s tongue made an appearance and touched the corner of her mouth. When it disappeared, Rémi longed to see it again.

  In moments like this, Rémi thought she was living in a dream. How else to explain that the woman she’d lusted after since she was fifteen, her best friend’s mother, was now her lover? That they had a life together and were happy? She took a joyful breath. Despite all the other things that happened in her life, she felt she was the luckiest person living.

  Rémi dropped the account book beside her on the bed, giving up the illusion of actually doing any work of her own. At the soft, ‘plop’ of paper against the cotton sheets, Claudia looked up.

  “Let’s go out,” Rémi said.

  Claudia nudged the glasses higher up on her nose. “And do what?”

  “Why don’t you come with me and find out?”

  Claudia put down the paper she had been grading and gave Rémi the full power of her brown eyes. “You know it’s a school night.”

  “I know. It won’t be for long. Promise.”

  Her eyes stayed trained on Rémi but in a moment, she leaned across the bed to kiss Rémi’s mouth. Rémi breathed in the clean scent of her, tasted the soft lips she’d worshiped for years, and kissed her deeply.

  Claudia smiled against her lips and drew back. “One hour,” she said.

  “I can work with that.” Rémi grinned.

  They dressed quickly, masters of the quick robing and disrobing required of the illicit lovers they had been before, a quick pulling on of street clothes before someone came in to interrupt or to judge. Without discussion, they dressed for the motorcycle—jeans, t-shirts, and leather jackets. It was Rémi’s outing, her ride. She rarely took the Escalade out anymore, choosing to travel cheaply and more quickly through Miami with the Harley instead.

  At one in the morning with Thursday night just behind them, the city still throbbed with life. Lights. Laughter. Limousines. All on the road once they left Claudia’s quiet neighborhood and headed up Highway 1 for the beach. Wind tearing at their clothes as they sped through the summer night with Claudia’s hands gripping Rémi’s waist, the beloved weight pressed against her back. This was all Rémi wanted.

  Sometimes she worried that she would become bored. That if some easy, pain-hungry woman in a short skirt—the sort she had once enjoyed tasting and discarding with trusted regularity—approached her with just the right words and twitch of the ass, she’d go. She worried.

  A few weeks before, in the middle of fucking sweetly Claudia, the tenderness dripping from her like the sweat down her back, Rémi had wanted more. A sharp need for slaps, a harder side of their love, stuttered the movement of her hips. Her fingers clenched in Claudia’s skin and her lover twitched under her. Rémi had pulled herself back from that need but never forgot it.

  After two years together, Rémi and Claudia’s world was still theirs. They had settled into a casual rapture, with their families having accepted their love. And although they still maintained the two houses with neither one in a rush to stand before a New York Justice of the Peace, they knew where their commitments lay. They had talked about these things. Joining. Marriage. In the midst of these talks, Rémi never voiced her fear of straying but always held tight to Claudia in the darkest hours to impress upon her usually ravenous and indiscriminate body the importance of this woman. The importance of remaining faithful.

  On the motorcycle, as if sensing Rémi’s thoughts, Claudia pressed closer, hands tightening around Rémi’s middle, her body falling more heavily into Rémi from behind. She opened up the throttle, passing a slow-moving Maserati on the left and whipping back into the far right lane. Claudia’s hands tightened around her again. In fear Rémi thought, until the fingers slipped under her jacket, under the white t-shirt and over her breasts. They tightened on her nipples. The bike roared as her hand gripped the throttle. They surged up the highway toward a destination Rémi abruptly forgot.

  “Careful,” she growled.

  But Claudia didn’t hear her or wasn’t paying attention because the light tease of fingers continued, playing over her breasts, the tightening peaks of her nipples shooting rhythmic heat to her crotch. Rémi swallowed and urged the bike faster. The fingers stopped playing. Instead, they moved in earnest, tightening on her nipples, squeezing and releasing, flooding wetness between Rémi’s legs. Heat rippled over the surface of her skin under the leather jacket. She felt every degree of her body temperature’s rise even as they roared at 90 miles an hour through the early morning.

  “Claudia...” She gritted her teeth.

  But the hands persisted. They raked over the hard muscles of her belly, over her stiff nipples until Rémi thought she would scream from the sensual distraction. She pushed the bike even harder, the speedometer inching past 100. Claudia’s fingers retreated. Then pressed into the seam of her jeans between her legs.

  Rémi nearly bit her tongue off. She turned the bike off the nearest exit. They ended up at the beach on a familiar stretch of sand with the moon burning brightly overhead.

  “Fuck!”

  Rémi stumbled off the bike after Claudia, barely able to roll the 800 cc Harley across the tightly packed sand to a more secluded spot. She wanted to follow Claudia. She wanted to drop the bike to wherever it wanted to land and pull Claudia into her, over her. Her legs trembled. On the other side of the bike, Claudia ambled along, occasionally peeking at Rémi over her shoulder. A seductive presence in the moonlit night wearing her close-fitting jeans and one of Rémi’s leather jackets.

  She must be trying to strip Rémi of all control. She must. There was no other explanation. It was only because of the brief thought of getting them both arrested for public indecency that she hadn’t grabbed Claudia and fucked her into screaming her name at the bottom of the highway exit ramp.

  “Is this where we were heading this whole time?” Claudia asked softly.

  Rémi didn’t even know where “this” was. The things she knew in that moment had nothing to do with geography but with need, the wetness coating her underwear, the tingles of arousal weaving through her body, leaving her mouth dry, her pussy wet, her armpits itching, her mind an incoherent mess.

  “You kissed me here for the first time,” Claudia murmured, coyness itself. “Do you remember?”

  All of her trembled with need. All of her wanted. Her knees nearly buckled as she jerked the bike to a stop in the sand and dropped down the kickstand. She stumbled back against a tree in the silvered darkness, the rough bark of the palm tree pricking her palms, scraping through her hair. Claudia followed with her wet mouth and forceful hands, unzipping Rémi’s jacket, biting her lips. The delicate noises of her pleasure flowered into the night.

  “Inside me,” Rémi gasped. “I need your fingers inside me now.”

  Claudia obliged her, yanking apart Rémi’s belt buckle and diving into her wetness with thigh-trembling ease. Rémi braced herself against the tree, widening her legs for her woman. Pleasure shivered through her.

  “God, yes!”

  Rémi blinked up at the sky, bright moon, trailing clouds, stars like pin-pricks of her lust blinking against inky black. Hands clenched in Claudia’s hair as her hips dove up to get more of the long fingers stroking her so well, so deeply. So fucking good.

  Claudia fumbled up to squeeze her nipples under the t-shirt. The double pleasure, fingers in her pussy, the almost painful squeeze and release around her nipple nearly split her apart. She gasped. Throat opening and closing with sounds of desire. She grabbed the collar of her own t-shirt and ripped it in two.

  Ah, yes!

  Warm night air washed over her bare stomach and chest. And Claudia’s hand moved more freely, raking her nipples, squeezing her breast. She felt Claudia move lower.

  “No!” Rémi gasped as the fingers knocked against a particularly sensit
ive well of pleasure inside her. “Just your fingers. I don’t want your mouth on me, not yet.”

  But Claudia dropped to her knees anyway, hot mouth joining the inciting fingers to cover Rémi with heat, to lick and suck her clit while her fingers fucked her slowly, easily, then quickly, speeding up until Rémi’s hips were jerking against the tree. It was just what she needed. Her head nearly exploded with pleasure as she came hard, clamping around her lover’s fingers.

  “Fuck.” She panted. “Fuck!”

  The rough bark scraped the back of her head as she slid down the tree, thighs trembling beyond all her control. Her breathing slowed. Her heart quit trying to kick out of her chest. Rémi licked her lips. She reached out to touch Claudia, hand curving around her love’s hip to bring her close.

  Claudia shook her head and clasped Rémi’s hand between hers. “I’m already satisfied, darling. I don’t need anything.” Her eyes were bright with arousal.

  Rémi panted in her throat. “I didn’t bring you out here for this.”

  “Didn’t you?” Claudia asked softly, a smile curving her lips.

  She knelt over Rémi in the sand, breasts a tempting curve near her lips. With a slow smile, she delicately licked her fingers, cleaning them of Rémi’s juices.

  An after-shudder rippled through Rémi. “I—”

  “No, it’s okay. I love knowing that I can bring you pleasure and you want that from me.”

  The waves lapped against the sand then tumbled back into the water, their back and forth motion pulling a frantic blood-beat from Rémi’s body. Ocean swallowed light from the stars floating above. Her pulse beat heavily between her thighs.

  The worry of the past few weeks tugged at her anew now that orgasm had receded and she could think and feel clearly again. Maybe this was what she’d brought Claudia out here for, to taste the fire of outdoor sex that had been such a favorite of hers before Claudia had accepted her love and allowed Rémi to rest in her heart. Except for a few times when she’d caught Claudia off guard, Rémi had given up all that.

  “What’s wrong?” Claudia’s voice broke the silence.

  “Who says anything’s wrong?”

  “I do. Something has been eating at you for a while but I thought—” Claudia shook her head. “I’m not sure what I thought.”

  Rémi wrestled briefly with the idea of not telling her, of keeping her shameful secret to herself, but….

  “What if you’re not enough for me?”

  On her lap, Claudia stiffened. “What do you mean?” The soft incline of her body sank into Rémi in the sand, moving closer until her breath fanned gently against Rémi’s face. “Darling?”

  “Just what I said. I’m—”

  “Are you dissatisfied with me?”

  “No!” Rémi grabbed her arms, pulling her closer. “I only want you. Only you.” But what if that changed? Rémi couldn’t keep the thought from her face.

  “But why would you say that after two years of us being together?” Claudia braced her palms against Rémi’s chest. “Unless something happened you’re not telling me about.”

  “No. Not that. Just a bad feeling.” And it was a feeling Rémi hoped to God would go away.

  Claudia’s hands fisted in the tattered remnants of Rémi’s shirt. In the dark, her eyes were wide with concern but she said nothing. Only came closer still and rested her cheek against Rémi’s heavily beating heart.

  Chapter Two

  From her office high above the crowd, Rémi stared down into Gillespie’s Jazz Bar. The beautiful and graceful Miami denizens wove through her club, their joyous faces lit up by the flaming candles glittering on each table while Maxwell crooned on the stage.

  It was an invitation-only night for a private performance Rémi had been very, very lucky to secure. She should have been vibing with the crowd. She should have been down there sitting at her reserved table or passing through the crowd, kissing cheeks and shaking hands. But she wasn’t in the mood.

  The night on the beach with Claudia still haunted her. That fear. The terror of fucking up the best thing in her life. Her fear wasn’t based on anything real. At least not so far.

  One of her waitresses, Monique, had come into her office dressed in next to nothing, practically begging for a fuck. High heels. Stockings. Hem of her tight black skirt barely covering her ass. A slim-fit blouse unbuttoned over her plumped up breasts. Mouth painted a “fuck me” red. But Rémi had let her go after only visually appreciating the body the waitress had on display. There had been no tingle in her pussy. No urge to drag the woman into the back playroom for an encore of one of their many nights there.

  Reflexively, Rémi glanced back at the double doors that remained shut and had been for a long time. She hadn’t had anyone back there since Claudia agreed to be hers and hers alone. She’d asked the cleaning woman to do a thorough scrubbing some months back but other than that, Rémi hadn’t been in the room.

  Her playroom. She’d had vague thoughts about turning it into something else but had no idea what.

  Someone knocked at her office door.

  “Come.”

  Claudia walked in. She brought the noise of the club with her. Maxwell’s mellow groove, the band backing up his seductive voice. The laughter of someone passing by. She closed the door and shut all that outside.

  “Good evening, my Rémi.”

  Rémi had had a dream once. In it Claudia had taken her, masterfully and completely, dominating her in a way her lover never had in real life. At least not physically. Every word Claudia had uttered in that dream worked to build a fever inside Rémi until she had exploded, body firing into orgasm in her dream and then in her bed as she woke.

  She’d told Claudia about that dream. About the outfit she’d worn as she flogged Rémi’s ass with her own belt and made her come so hard she barely remembered her own name afterward. Rémi had told her everything. And now, here she stood. The Claudia in her dream. From the deep red of her unsmiling mouth to the heels of her black stilettos, her lover exuded hard-edged seduction. Rémi straightened.

  “Hey.” She could barely speak past her dry throat.

  Claudia wore red. A body-hugging, long sleeved blouse that left a sharp V of naked flesh arrowed between her breasts. The carmine silk suffused the skin of her face and throat with subtle color. A black skirt clung to her lean thighs, her knees, stopping at mid-calf. When Claudia turned to make sure the door was closed, Rémi saw through a mouth-watering slit in the skirt, the delicate skin of the back of her knees, the tight calves flexing with her half step in the black stilettos.

  “Why aren’t you downstairs?” Claudia asked as she came closer in her red and black. The carpet muffled her steps but Rémi felt every single one in her belly, delicate but precise.

  “I was waiting for you,” Rémi said, realizing suddenly the truth of it.

  “You knew I’d come tonight?”

  “I hoped you would.”

  Claudia smiled, mischievous. Sexy. “That’s one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about you, darling. The combination of hope and strength and certainty in one beautiful package.”

  Rémi didn’t know what to say.

  “At the beginning of all this, did you ever doubt I would end up in your bed?”

  Rémi felt the blush rise in her face, the lie take wing toward her throat. She opened her mouth and allowed the truth instead.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Claudia stood close, her palm resting against Rémi’s chest. “Good girl. Thank you for not lying to me.”

  “I never lie to you.”

  Claudia’s eyelashes fluttered as she looked down. The shadows of her long lashes rested against high cheeks. Then Claudia looked up. “I know. You don’t lie to me but you might lie to yourself. And at times, that might be the same thing, my darling.”