Red Light (14 page)

I almost dropped my food into my lap. “We passed? Are you kidding?”

“Well, yeah, you passed,” Bob grinned, “and notice you’re the only students here?”

I nodded dumbly, as did Roy and Bennie. Even though it would be a week before we got our official grades, I had suspected that Bob and the crew would know who had passed and who hadn’t before we even walked into the practical, but I’d been so nervous, I hadn’t thought he’d tell us.

“I take the top two scores and scholarship ’em for the instructors’ course. Since you guys scored the same, I used a little…discretion.” He grinned. “All three of you are fee-waived.”

That was fantastic news, and I felt really good about it, but I felt even better moments later when Trace walked in.

“Hey, how you doin’?” I asked as I stood, happy to see her. We’d spoken a couple of times since
that
night, but we hadn’t really seen each other. “What are you doing here?”

“I know where you guys hang out,” she said smugly, “so I’m looking for you.”

We gave each other a hug.

“Hey, Roe, Ray-Ray,” she said. “Bob.”

“Yo, Trace,” and “Hey,” they returned.

Someone found a chair and everyone shifted to make room. Trace sat next to me and casually laid her hand on my thigh.

Bennie glanced at me sharply from across the table, and I smiled blandly as I covered Trace’s hand with my own. Bennie could go get her own girl.

Trace’s thumb stroked against the inside of my thigh, a very soothing gesture that reminded me that I wanted to know more about her, as talk at the table turned to our options once we got our cards in the mail.

“You guys might not even take the instructor course,” Ray-Ray told us. “If the next academy class opens up in time, you guys will probably fast-track it.”

The thought hadn’t occurred to me, and I pondered it as the group reached the universal decision that the day was up.

“You kids, call me if you need a reference, wanna chat, whatever,” Bob told us as we walked out the door en masse.

“Thanks,” I said, Trace’s hand warm in mine.

“Hey, yeah, thanks a lot,” Bennie added.

“Hey, you’re my kids, gotta look out for ya, right?” Bob told us with a grin.

He patted each of us on the shoulder, and we dispersed to our cars. Trace walked with me.

*

“Drop your car off and spend the next two days with me,” she said, draping her hands across my waist. “I want to celebrate with you,” she added as she closed in on me.

Normally, I wouldn’t, but the stirring of her hand on my leg and the electric scrape of her teeth along my ear made my mind up for me. Well, something did, anyway. Besides, I liked her and wanted the opportunity to show her.

“Howzabout I go home and change, then meet you back at your place?”

She agreed, and it seemed like two minutes later I’d showered, changed, and headed back out. Nina and Samantha weren’t home when I left, but I figured if they needed to get in touch with me, they knew my cell number.

I got to Trace’s condo a few minutes later and took a deep lungful of the ocean-scented air before I walked to her door.

It swung open before I could even think of knocking. For all of three seconds, I saw Trace wearing something other than scrubs, her hair soft and loose, before she twined her arms around my neck and pulled me inside.

“Missed you,” she said simply, and pressed her lips to mine. I smoothed my hands along her ribs, then down the channel of her spine until they rested on her hips. Her mouth was wonderfully soft as I explored it and enjoyed the sensuous return of her tongue. It lit a pleasant fire that tingled from my thighs to my diaphragm.

But I didn’t want to rush, not like last time. I reluctantly broke that kiss.

“So…you wanted to do some premature celebration?” I drawled, smiling into her gray eyes as I hooked my fingers into her belt loops. I shifted my hips and my groin brushed against hers.

Trace’s fingers trailed down my neck, leaving a delicious shiver in their wake. “Kiss me like that again,” she warned, “and it won’t be the celebration that’s premature.”

I used the belt loops to pull her closer, so that she landed solidly against me. I dipped my mouth close to her ear. “I thought we might go slower next time,” I whispered, then nibbled lightly on the delicately curled ridge.

Trace burrowed her lips into my neck, and she pulled my shirt out of my jeans as she led me to her room. “Next time,” she agreed in that sexy, throaty buzz as we crossed the threshold, “not this time.”

I kissed her to seal the deal and let go of her pants. Instead I undid the buttons of her shirt one by one, baring and smoothing the skin beneath, tasting her skin as it was revealed.

“Mm-hmm…” she sighed as I sucked on a spot in the hollow of her collarbone she was particularly responsive to, and she slid my pants down.

I flicked slightly to open her jeans and everything else just melted away, left to fall where it would as we stepped to the edge of her bed. She pulled me down on top of her and we wrapped around one another, her arms and legs warm and smooth along my body as I languidly tasted her tongue again.

I explored her further, trailing my lips and tasting her, drinking in her skin as I passed over the defined ribs, delicate, horizontal channels across her chest, my fingers clasping one slight breast, letting the hard tip slide between them and against my palm as I licked the underside of the other.

Trace shifted under me and etched a lovely line up my leg with her foot, sending a shiver through me, and ran her fingers through my hair, gripping strands that drew me to her until her breast was in my mouth and I played her nipple with my tongue.

“You do that well,” she said breathily.

I glanced up at her. Her face held an interesting expression, a cross between arousal and something I couldn’t quite define. It was time to shift gears. I stopped and slid back up her body, drawing her legs up higher around me, and let my tongue glide between willing lips. I eased my hips so my cunt rested against hers and rocked against her, a slow and calculated pace that she answered.

“Do you want to fuck?” I made my words a distinct and deliberate whisper against her ear. I could feel her cunt moving under mine, hot and slick as we rocked.

Her hands had dug into my skin, short sharp streaks that sparked into my spine, and I slipped a hand between us to swirl my fingers in the rich heat that bathed and licked at my clit. Hard. Wet. Open. My favorite combination of things. She caught her breath and exhaled with a shudder that snaked through us both.

“You want me to fuck you?” I asked again, and caught her throat gently between my teeth. I entered her slightly, just enough to feel the warm welcome of her.

“Uh…” she breathed, and bit my ear in response.

I closed my hand a bit as I slid into her, and once I filled her, I opened it again so that the upsweep of my palm would spread her lips farther and stroke against the sensitive underside and head of her clit. She jammed her hips up against me.

I groaned at the gratifying feel of that hard, hard push against my skin, her clit pressed against my palm, the sleek fit of her around me.

“Yes…” she answered, a soft sound that cut through the early afternoon silence and tickled against the light hairs on my neck. “I really
like
…the way you do that…”

“I like
doing
it,” I told her, then kissed her again, fucking her as deliberately as I spoke.

Once again her hands moved on my ass, and Trace urged me on and in, and it was almost enough, just kissing her and fucking her, the blood surge in my clit moving in time to my fingers inside her, while she clutched at me and her legs pressed against my shoulders.

“God, yeah, fuck me, just…fuck me,” she groaned, her body a wave under me, her fingers painting new lines up my back as I did her harder.

One hand came off me as the other slid back down, and finally her fingers came to my cunt, sliding along the fucking ache she’d built, and then I felt it; she must have gotten it from under the pillow or something, but there was no mistaking the skim of the cock that skated my wanting edge.

“Christ…” I groaned as she pressed it against me. I breathed hard—wanting, craving—and my head sank involuntarily. I rubbed my cheek against her neck. Oh…fuck. Yes…no…God. What…what would she want? “Do it,” I told her, the words jerking out of my throat as she continued to play me.

She pushed, slowly, firmly, and for a moment I hung, once again suspended as my shoulders lifted and my back arched to meet her. The wordless sound that came from my chest led me deeper into her as she rammed me.

“Don’t stop,” she begged, “don’t…fucking…stop.”

“I won’t,” I gasped as her fingers worked that dick inside me. Oh, fuck it, I was slamming her hard, her cunt riding my fingers so easily that I added another.

“That’s it,” I encouraged when I felt that unmistakable squeeze, the crush that made me thrust harder, push deeper, past that resistance that builds as the body gets ready to come and come good while she fucked me, an unremitting, unrelenting push that left me ragged because the weight in my cunt told me there was another side to this, created a pressure I knew wouldn’t be relieved until I had that part inside her.

“God…yes…” She bucked wildly as I strained against her, to contain her, to maintain the fuck strong, and steady, and deep, as her body slicked beneath me, and still she pumped me relentlessly.

“Oh, yeah…come,” I urged, my own cunt ready to explode.

“Oh, fuck…” she moaned, and bit her lip so hard I watched the skin split. She held that dick within me and threw her head back. She clawed at my shoulder. “Yeah, that’s…that’s it, that’s it!”

I fucked her and stayed deep in those last few moments, the cunt-kiss tight around my fingers, and I felt my own clench in response.

“God…” she finally breathed quietly as she settled under me.

I shifted and eased out of her, my blood raging because she still pressed that dick into me, the other part of it resting against the bed, creating a friction that was almost unbearable. I kissed the blood off her lip and gazed into her eyes, which had deepened to dark pewter, a fog gray ringing them.

“You okay?” I asked, my voice almost as gravelly as hers from choking back so much.

“I’m fine,” she practically purred, and stretched a bit, resettling her long legs around me. “Do you wanna come?” she asked, a sly smile edging her lips. She began to pump me again, a slight, insistent motion.

“I…I don’t have to,” I groaned in response as I caught my breath. A slight breeze in the room brushed over me, raising a sting in the lines she’d drawn in my shoulder when she released it to reach between us, to stroke my clit between her fingers. She was driving me crazy.

She licked my neck. “Why don’t you put that where it belongs so I can feel you come?” she asked, and guided me to her.

I almost cried with relief when that weight in my cunt eased, taken by hers, but still, I moved slowly. I
needed
, but she’d just come, which meant she’d be tight, and I didn’t want to hurt her.

This time her kiss was totally full of sensuality, and even though she kept that hand behind me, holding everything firm, the other was gentle as she continued to rub my clit.

“Fuck me the way you want to,” Trace said, her sensual low voice playing in my ear before she nibbled on it. “You’re not gonna hurt me.”

She thrust her hips against me to prove her point, and I wasn’t going to, but I was so hard and she stroked me so good, and that cock begged me to bury it fucking furiously…driven beyond the edge of reason, I did.

*

I didn’t stay the two days. I’d promised I’d make breakfast the next day, and honestly, after I came, we drank, ordered in, took a nap, then fucked some more. I appreciated it, I really did, but…I can’t explain it, I just had to get home. Trace was cool, she understood, and I left her with the promise that we’d be in touch in a few days.

I parked when I got to the house and practically crawled up the darkened stairs. I went straight for the shower, tired and sore, and needing to clear my head. Trace had left me feeling muzzy, and I wasn’t sure if it was the champagne, the Chinese food, or just too much fucking, which I didn’t really think was possible, because Kerry and I had really enjoyed marathoning it when we had the time.

Ah, Kerry, I reflected as I shampooed my hair. Sex with Kerry had always been fantastic, unpredictable, and had run through moods from soft and sensual, to playful, to please-baby-now urgency, but never, ever, had it had this edge to it, this uncontrollable fire that burned everything it touched.

My back stung in more than one place; in fact, it felt like my whole body stung as the soapy water sluiced off my skin, and I was more careful than I ever remember having to be when I wrapped myself in a towel.

Nina and Samantha were coming up the stairs as I closed the bathroom door behind me.

“Hey,” I greeted.

“Backatchya.” Samantha smiled at me, a smile that quickly became a crease between her eyes as she focused on me.

“Hi, Tori. How’re you—holy shit!” Nina exclaimed, staring at my neck and shoulders as she approached me.