Hungry for It Page 13

  “I’ve never been with a woman. But I guess you knew that.”

  Rémi nodded. Her glass of wine lay near her fist, untouched. “I suspected but I didn’t know for sure. There was always something about your friendship with Eden that I thought was very . . . intimate.”

  “Oh, shut up!” Claudia laughed, nearly spilling her drink. “Eden and I have been friends since before Warrick and I met. I’ve never met a straighter woman.”

  “I’m sure some could say the same thing about you.” She rubbed the stem of the wineglass with her index finger. “Do you worry about what your friends will say when they find out you’ve been”—she grinned—“dining at the Y?”

  “What’s th—? Oh! I haven’t done that yet.”

  The “yet” made Rémi’s pussy sit up in her pants and take notice. “We’ll have to fix that soon,” she said, finally picking up her wine to drink. Her throat was suddenly very dry.

  When the food came, they lingered over it, putting their conversation on hold to savor bites from each other’s plates. Claudia’s grilled trout was buttery soft on Rémi’s tongue while her own lobster tasted so-so. She pushed the barely touched plate aside, but Claudia laughingly pulled it towards her, making the comment that the food from someone else’s plate always tasted sweeter.

  “Hm. Sounds like we’re talking about sex now.”

  “Well, I wasn’t.”

  “Why don’t we just pretend we were?” She leaned forward with barely concealed eagerness.

  Claudia rolled her eyes, but she smiled back at Rémi, looking relaxed and replete in her chair. Classical music hummed from the restaurant’s hidden speakers. The sound was not at all soothing. The cello sawed in the air, buzzing in Rémi’s ear like a bee she’d like to kill. But for Claudia, she ignored it.

  “Eating from other people’s plates . . .” Rémi paused. “Does that mean you like rimming?”

  “What?” Claudia laughed loudly, attracting the glance of nearby diners. She clapped her hand over her mouth. “That’s so random.” The corners of her eyes crinkled as she laughed again.

  “Claudia.” A slightly raised male voice fell between them. “I thought that was you.”

  Rémi felt more than saw Claudia flinch and pull away, dropping her hand from the table where it had been playing with Rémi’s.

  The man was only a few feet away, but he might as well have been sitting at their table, his gaze was so focused on them. Dark slacks, cable-knit sweater with the collar of a white dress shirt sitting in its V-neck, no wedding ring, and a too-pleased smile aimed at Claudia. An annoying Brooks Brothers ad with a pretty face complete with sophisticated gray hair to match. His eyes crinkled at the corners when she stood up to greet him.

  “Kincaid. Good to see you.”

  He kissed her cheek and held her to him for just a trifle too long. Claudia gently pulled away. Her smile drew Rémi to her feet as she introduced them.

  The banker shook Rémi’s hand. She remembered him now, from a night at the club almost a year ago when he was Claudia’s date. “More exciting than he looked,” Rémi recalled her saying.

  “Good to meet you.” She shook his hand.

  He said something then turned back to Claudia. “If I’d known you were here earlier I would have invited you and your friend to join my party at our table.

  “That’s all right.” Rémi spoke up as if he’d addressed her. “This is a private party.”

  Kincaid looked puzzled; then he peered at Rémi as if seeing her apart from Claudia for the first time. Her man-tailored shirt and blazer, the loose slacks, the possessive hand she laid on the small of Claudia’s back. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He turned a look of surprise to Claudia.

  He opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it.

  Claudia lightly clasped his arm. “It was good to see you, Caid. As always.”

  “Ah . . . sure. I’ll call you later on in the week. Maybe we can check out the opera again sometime soon.” His narrowed eyes seemed to challenge Rémi. But she shrugged, smiled.

  “You didn’t have to do that, you know.” Claudia turned to Rémi.

  “What?”

  “Be possessive like that. This isn’t a cock fight—”

  “If it was, I’d win.”

  Claudia rolled her eyes. “No. Seriously. I don’t think that was appropriate. It wasn’t flattering when Warrick did it, and it’s not flattering now. Machismo was never a turn-on for me.”

  Rémi’s lips tightened. “Sorry.” She blew out a tense breath. “Does that mean we’re ready for the check?”

  “I think so. We can continue this conversation somewhere else.”

  They sat in silence until the waiter came with their check. Before he could leave again, Claudia pulled out her purse and gave him the bill plus tip in cash. In Claudia’s car, they endured a painfully quiet ride for several miles before Rémi, tapping her fingers impatiently against her thigh, decisively broke it.

  “I’m sorry if I offended you. Sometimes my jealousy gets the better of me.” She fingered the curls at the nape of her own neck. “Strangely enough, only when you’re involved.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel good?”

  “No. It’s supposed to end this weird tension. I want to get back to having a good time with you. Can I?”

  Claudia, neatly maneuvering the silver Audi TT through the sparse traffic on South Bayshore Drive, glanced quickly at her before refocusing on the road. Her hand tightened on the steering wheel, and the small muscles in her arms jumped. Rémi watched them, mesmerized.

  “Warrick used to do that all the time. But it didn’t mean anything.” She changed gears and the car sped up. “He’d pretend jealousy when we were out with other people or even when we got home. But there was no affection for me behind it. I was a possession he wanted to have all to himself.” Her eyes slanted at Rémi. “After a while he didn’t even take me out of the box to play with me.”

  Rémi felt the shock of Claudia’s words settle into her chest. “I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay. How could you?” Her hand drifted down to Rémi’s thigh and squeezed. “By the way.” The hand moved higher up, settling on Rémi’s hip, just under her jacket. “Rimming is not quite my scene. I’ve had it done to me before and it’s not bad. I mean, you’re cleaning my bottom. I could have done that with a piece of tissue.”

  Rémi glanced at her with a surprised smile. “I’ll remember that.”

  By the time they arrived at the house, tension had all but disappeared between them. Claudia unlocked the door and walked in ahead of her.

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  She turned back to look at Rémi as she walked down the short hallway leading into the living room.

  “No thanks.” Rémi wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself at this point. If it had been anyone else, there would have been no hesitation on her part. But . . .

  Claudia cocked a hand on her hip. “You sure? Don’t you know that it’s required to drink whatever your date offers you at the end of the evening?”

  Rémi’s footsteps slowed on the way to the couch. “Oh? In that case I’ll have some of whatever you have cold in the fridge.”

  “Good girl.” Claudia smiled.

  Rémi took off her jacket and lay back on the couch, dropped her head back, closing her eyes. Warrick hadn’t taken her out of the box to play in a long time. Surprising. And cruel. How long had it been since Claudia felt someone else’s passionate touch? Had it been that bourgie fucker at the restaurant?

  Something cold and wet fell against her cheek. Rémi opened her eyes. Above her, Claudia held a sweating bottle of gold liquid. Sol. A Mexican beer she’d mentioned in passing was her favorite. Rémi smiled. Claudia never failed to make her feel special, no matter how simple the gesture. Another droplet from the beer bottle fell near her mouth. She reached for it.

  “Again, sorry about what happened in the restaurant.” Claudia sat besid
e Rémi on the couch. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that. You don’t deserve any of the anger I have left for Warrick.” Claudia’s fingers teased Rémi’s throat, tracing the path the beer took as she drank.

  “I know about leftover resentment. Consider earlier forgotten”—Rémi closed her eyes to savor Claudia’s touch on her skin—“except the good parts, of course.”

  “Oh yes. The good parts. My favorite.” Claudia gently tugged the beer from Rémi’s hand and tasted it. The face she made surprised a laugh from Rémi. She returned the bottle and reached for her glass, sparkling with white wine on the low coffee table.

  “Mine too.” She put the beer on the table and reached for Claudia. “Do you think we can continue where we left off?”

  The seductive warmth came, draped over her lap, straddled Rémi with temptation in her smile.

  “I’m sure we could,” Claudia said. “Maybe even a little farther.” With one hand, she deftly undid the top button of Rémi’s shirt. Then another. She sipped the wine, then, holding the glass delicately, she leaned in to kiss Rémi.

  The slim body pressed against hers, a barely there warmth, soft lips, and the cool trickle of wine into Rémi’s mouth. Sweet. The wine was sweet with a hint of raspberries and the lingering flavor of trout from Claudia’s tongue. Rémi swallowed. Dropped her head back against the couch. Was it possible that Claudia wanted it as badly as Rémi did? Did she spend nights imagining their sex, fingers between her thighs, a yawning explosion bubbling up in her belly? Rémi’s hands settled on Claudia’s back, just above her bottom.

  “I—”

  They both flinched when the doorbell rang.

  “What were you going to say?”

  Rémi smiled. “Nothing that can’t wait.”

  Claudia looked down at her with doubt, pecked her briefly on the mouth before pulling away. “Some things aren’t meant to wait,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  But the other woman was already padding barefoot across the cherry hardwood toward the door. Rémi sipped her beer. If Claudia meant what Rémi thought.... She paused with the bottle halfway to her mouth at the sound of the masculine voice that answered in response to Claudia’s musical, “Who is it?”

  Rémi refastened the top two buttons on her shirt as the front door opened.

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “I am busy at the moment, yes.”

  Warrick—Rémi recognized his voice now—didn’t seem put off by his ex-wife’s tone. If anything, it seemed to amuse him. When he walked into the living room just ahead of Claudia, his eyes gleaming with curiosity, Rémi didn’t bother to stand up. His eyes widened when he saw her sitting on the couch.

  “It’s just you, Rémi.” His smile spread wide. “From the way Claudia sounded I thought she had a man in here or something. Nice to see you, by the way. You look good. Prosperous.”

  Rémi wanted to ask him what he thought the “or something” was. “Thank you,” she said.

  “What can I do for you, Warrick? I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”

  Something drifted across his face before he turned to Claudia. “I finished my conference a little early and I thought I might come by and say hello.”

  “Calling first would have been the polite thing to do.”

  “There’s too much between us for it to all boil down to politeness, Claude.” His glance flickered to Rémi again. “I thought you’d have time to have a drink with me tonight.”

  “I’m already having drinks.”

  “I see that.”

  A shadow passed over his brow again as he looked at the coffee table with the glass of wine and Rémi’s beer. Claudia’s black high heels lying beneath it. Rémi forced herself not to wipe at her mouth to get rid of the lipstick stains she suspected lay there.

  A muscle in his jaw flexed. “In that case, can I get that case I left when I came to see you last time? I’ll just get it and go.”

  “Oh—ah yes. Sure.” Claudia glanced at him, wide-eyed, as if surprised he was giving in so easily. “I think I remember where I put it. Give me a second.”

  He and Rémi both watched Claudia disappear up the stairs.

  Warrick turned to Rémi. “The last time I saw you, you were in high school. And you had long hair.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Now here you are.” The blade in his glance was out in the open now.

  “Here I am.”

  He dropped his hands in his pockets. “Are you fucking my wife?”

  My wife? Rémi’s eyebrow rose. “I haven’t been to California in a long time, so I doubt that.”

  “Don’t be stupid. You know what I mean.”

  Rémi revealed part of a smile. “I don’t think anything I do is any of your business.”

  Pulling his hands from his pockets, Warrick stepped closer. “Didn’t your daddy tell you not to play with men’s things?”

  All of her smile burst out and Rémi relaxed even deeper in the chair. “I can see that your mama didn’t teach you any manners. Ladies deserve respect. I think we can both agree that Claudia is a lady not a thing.”

  Bare footsteps slapping against the stairs warned them both of Claudia’s impending return. Warrick put his hands back into his pockets and walked past the sofa, stopping at the window, seeming to stare at the garden hidden in darkness outside.

  “Here is the case, Warrick.” Claudia slipped back into the room, a cool smile on her lips.

  She passed Rémi, brushing a hand along the back of the sofa, to give her ex-husband the brown leather case. An inaudible rumble came from Warrick.

  “There’s nothing for us to talk about privately. Especially not now. Call me later if you have something to say.”

  Rémi couldn’t hold back her smile. A real one this time. As Warrick walked past her, his back a stiff line under the dark blue blazer, she called out, “Nice to see you again, Mr. Nichols.” His lack of response didn’t surprise her.

  Claudia walked in from the hallway after Warrick left, looking at Rémi with a puzzled frown. “What was that about?”

  “He asked me if I was fucking his wife.”

  “He did what?” Claudia stopped in her tracks, stared at Rémi to see if she was telling the truth, then seeing the lack of a lie in her face, turned around and flew toward the door and her ex-husband.

  “No, no, it’s okay.” Rémi said, not bothering to rush to Claudia’s side and prevent her from going after Warrick.

  He was already gone. “What was his purpose in asking you that question?” Claudia came back into the living room, hand on her hip.

  “To make sure the Ethiopian beauty wasn’t cheating on him?” Months ago, Dez told Rémi about her father’s new wife and how hot she was. How Rémi would have enjoyed playing with her.

  A smile trembled and fell off Claudia’s face. As if it suddenly occurred to her what his knowing about them really meant.

  “Do you think he’ll tell Derrick?”

  “Do you think your son will love you any less if he knows you’re fucking me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “No.” Rémi pulled Claudia down into her lap. “He can be a prick but he’s not that hopeless.”

  “You’re probably right.” Claudia crossed her arms behind Rémi’s head and pressed herself closer. “Let’s not talk about my son. I’ll have to deal with him and Desiree soon enough.”

  And that was all right with Rémi. Claudia’s anger at her earlier show of jealousy had cut through her like lightning, frying her senses with its uncharacteristic intensity and leaving her insides shuddering from the aftershocks. But the anger hadn’t come because of Rémi, but rather from Claudia’s ex. And then Warrick himself walked through the door, interrupting what might have gone on despite the mini explosion at the restaurant. Women with baggage. She’d always warned her friends to stay away from those, and now here she was. Her mouth tightened at the irony. And Claudia licked it, chasing the curves with her tongue.

  “Forget about ever
ything. Except for us.”

  Claudia’s hands cupped the back of Rémi’s head, fingers sliding through the curls and raking shudders up Rémi’s back. The scent of apples pressed into her senses, and she sighed. Sweet kisses glided across her mouth, her jaw, down to her throat, and she gave into them, gladly. The slight back flared with heat under her palms. Claudia kissed her, teased her lips with small bites and licks, controlling every movement of Rémi’s body as she bit, pulled away, teasing with her warm breath and hot mouth until Rémi leaned forward with each retreat of Claudia’s mouth, reaching for more of the warmth, the flicking tongue.

  Claudia’s back was firm under her palms. Firm and hot. A fine tremor began inside Rémi when slim fingers dropped to her belt and began to unbuckle it. Hot breath licked at her ear.

  “I think I’m ready for my dessert now.”

  The whisper touched Rémi like a caress. Her clit bucked inside her pants, and a hot itch, wetness flooding over her pussy lips, made her press her legs together and bite back a moan. She grabbed Claudia’s arms. Unbuckled now, her belt gaped open, Claudia’s fingers slid past the waistband of her briefs, skimmed through her pussy hairs, cupped her clit.

  Sweet Jesus! When Claudia moved down Rémi’s body, her intent clear in the way she eyed Rémi’s swollen clit framed in the V of her zipper, her brain went into overload. Time stopped.

  The doorbell rang.

  Don’t answer it! “Please don’t answer it,” she rasped.

  Hot breath misted her clit. Her eyelashes fluttered. Fingers dug into Claudia’s shoulder.

  The ringing came again. Then whoever it was started to bang on the door. Someone shouted. Warrick. Claudia catapulted from Rémi’s lap as if someone had yanked a string inside her.

  Rémi hissed. “Fuck!”

  “I’m sorry,” Claudia said. She stood up and backed away, her eyes wide with annoyance, and perhaps, Rémi thought, a little relief. She padded toward the front door.

  Rémi squeezed her eyes shut. Breathed slowly from parted lips, stood up, zipped and buckled her pants, pulled her jacket on. Anger and thwarted arousal warred equally for the tremor in her limbs. She scraped a hand across her face and breathed deeply again. With a quick glance toward the hallway where Claudia had just disappeared, she considered leaving through the back door.