Adieu Warm Sunshine Read online

  "I'm a dancer," Pamela said. "I'm in the show."

  "What's the show? I know the names of the theaters, but the shows are so ephemeral, and I never see them..." Great way to impress a dancer.

  Pamela just chuckled. "It's Lodoïska."

  "Ah. Of course."

  "Limited run. Everyone who wants to see it will have seen it in three months."

  "Is it good?"

  "It might win a few Tonys for design. I think it's silly. A man searches for his long lost love, there's some hijinks, then a big battle at the end. That's what everyone's excited about. Supposedly. We weren't even half full tonight. The battle probably sucks."

  Sunny nodded.

  "What about you?"

  "Look around. See if you can tell."

  Pamela surveyed, surely seeing the computer and GPS on the dashboard, the antennas on the back hood. "A taxi, I thought—No, a cop. A cop?"

  Sunny nodded.

  "Shit."

  "I'm not going to bust you," Sunny said.

  "No?" Pamela looked her up and down and grinned.

  Sunny pulled into a parking deck. "Most definitely not."

  "What if what we're about to do is a crime?"

  It was said flirtatiously and was a sharp reminder of their intentions. Sunny shivered. Not the weird jolts she'd felt before—this one was ordinary desire. Pamela studied her with a liquid gaze.

  "That's the best kind," Sunny said.

  They got out of the car. Pamela leaned on the hood and smiled. "You're definitely dangerous, Sunny."

  Funny. I have a feeling you're not. "Come and see."

  They walked toward the elevator. Pamela extended her hand, and Sunny took it.

  Sunny pushed the button for the elevator.

  "Andaz Hotel," Pamela read. "You live here?"

  Sunny hesitated. "No."

  Pamela bit her lip then seemed to shake herself. "I've never been here. It's exciting."

  The doors opened and they stepped into the elevator. Sunny used her grip on Pamela's hand to pull her to the wall of the elevator and spin her around.

  Pamela's eyes widened as her back hit the wall, but her gaze never left Sunny's face.

  "Does danger excite you?" Sunny asked.

  "Yes."

  Sunny leaned in to capture Pamela's mouth in a searing kiss. Pamela opened to her and wrapped her free arm around Sunny's neck to pull her closer. Sunny's tongue moved in, seeking heat, but was met by an aggressive foe, a hungry kiss matched with equal hunger. They sparred and breathed, and Sunny moved closer to feel Pamela's body against hers. The doors opened again.

  Sunny stepped back, letting go. Pamela's gaze didn't waver. "Let's see this posh room," Pamela said.

  "I'm starting to think you have an answer for everything."

  "Part of the job."

  "Don't you just dance?"

  "Cute. If I don't seem like I can do the job emotionally and mentally as well as physically, someone stronger will come along. It's not like acting. No one's asking us for searing vulnerability."

  "Tough shell."

  "Learned skill. Inside I'm a lost little girl." Pamela laughed.

  "Aren't we all."

  Sunny reached the door and unlocked it, flicking on the light as she passed. Pamela slipped just inside the door as it closed.

  "Do you want a drink?" Sunny asked.

  "No," Pamela said. Still close. She shrugged out of her leather jacket and let it fall on the floor. Then she reached for Sunny's scarf and unraveled it, letting it slip down Sunny's back.

  "What do you want, then?" Sunny asked, turning and cupping Pamela's jaw, stroking the curve that had first caught her attention. Steel bone and soft skin. She knew Pamela would be confident enough to answer.

  "I want you to kiss me again."

  Sunny obliged, taking a kiss as much as giving one. She gripped Pamela's shirt in her fists. Pamela grabbed her in a hug. Sunny bit demandingly against exploring lips. She sucked on the thrusting tongue. She breathed through her nose and gave her whole mouth over to Pamela, who kissed her first with fervor and then with measured experience, tickling and nudging and then finally parting.

  Sunny took a deep breath.

  Pamela stepped back, keeping one hand on Sunny's side, to look around the room. Modern, funky furniture sat around a flat screen TV, and beyond that was the bed, low to the floor with a white wood headboard and beige sheets.

  "I took a shower," Pamela said. "After the show."

  "I didn't. Let me—"

  Pamela nodded.

  Sunny ducked into the bathroom and locked it then turned on the water. She carefully stripped and folded her clothing. Naked, she studied herself in the mirror. Her lips were already swollen.

  #

  Sunny came out of the bathroom with a towel around wrapped herself. Pamela had turned down the covers and was lying on the bed, naked.

  "Okay, then." Sunny dropped the towel.

  Pamela had a dancer's build—muscular and long, lean lines. Sunny wanted to feel those muscles against her. She wanted to know if Pamela had a strong grip, if she clung or released in passion.

  She wanted to know if Pamela was already wet. Already waiting.

  Sunny's pulse quickened. She licked her suddenly dry lips. The lights were low. The television was off.

  Pamela gave an embarrassed chuckle.

  Sunny sat on the bed, settled up against the headboard, shoulder to shoulder with Pamela. They'd had five minutes of conversation, and they were already naked. Naked, she still felt completely safe in this room with no gun. She took Pamela's hand in hers, squeezing it gently then turning it over and tracing the lines of her palm. Whatever was going on, she wanted to stay.

  Pamela shivered.

  Sunny brought Pamela's palm to her lips, kissing it. Pamela curled her fingers, stroked Sunny's nose. They fell into another kiss.

  "Are you in a relationship?" Pamela asked when they were sitting side by side again, holding hands chastely.

  "No. You?"

  "No. Would it weird you out if I said my last time was with a man?"

  Sunny curled onto her side on the bed, facing Pamela. She traded hands, leaned in to brush her nose against Pamela's shoulder. "Not really."

  "My life is complicated," Pamela said. Then shook her head. "But here, it doesn't feel complicated. It feels... perfectly normal." She twisted and met Sunny's eyes. "Weird, right?"

  "Yeah," Sunny said.

  Pamela's face crinkled as she smiled. "I've never slept with a cop before."

  "I sure as hell haven't slept with a dancer from Forty-Second Street."

  Sunny leaned forward for another kiss. Unlike their other kisses, this time it was gentle, friendly. Lips converging on lips, parting to smile, meeting again. Sunny let go of Pamela's hand and touched her thigh instead. Pamela made a low sound and deepened the kiss, spreading to open herself.

  Sunny wasn't a conqueror, she was a seeker. She sought Pamela's tongue, found it challenging, firm and slick and soft, and sliding her hand upward between Pamela's thighs, found her equally slick there. Hungry. Wanting.

  Pamela turned, cupping Sunny's far shoulder, sliding until their bodies pressed together. Sunny broke the kiss to catch her breath, to reassess what was making her fingers tingle and her heart pound, but Pamela kept moving, enticingly, maddeningly against her and then, in a smooth motion, on top of her.

  Pamela, bracing herself with a strong, slender arm—so that's what dancing was for—meeting Sunny's eyes again, while squirming on top of her, straddled across her hips.

  "Is that how this is going to go?" Sunny asked, letting a seductive smile play at her lips.

  "If that's all right with you."

  Pamela leaned down to kiss Sunny's forehead then sighed, letting her lips lazily drag down her temple and her cheek, before lifting up again.

  She'd left a trail of fire. Sunny wanted to cover her cheek. She wanted Pamela to kiss her again with cooler lips and put the fire out—or consume her.

/>   She settled for holding Pamela's waist as they kissed, this time fervent and needful. Like they were running out of time. Sunny began to move with Pamela's movements, rolling together, just being together, letting the intimacy fall around them and then through them.

  Then Pamela moved her kisses down Sunny's neck and to her chest and her breast. Sunny thought, Yes, this is how this is going to go. She closed her eyes, feeling herself quicken. Pamela's lips on her nipple were sharp and soft simultaneously, and then her teeth were soothingly blunt, and then her tongue ignited more fire, and Sunny thought it had never felt like this when someone bothered to kiss her breast on the way to sex. Pamela switched to her other breast, and there was more. Sunny arched up.

  Pamela caught her and pressed her lips to Sunny's chest, above her heart. "It's like they were made for me," she said.

  All Sunny could muster was a "Yeah."

  Pamela's mouth lowered again and Sunny thought she would scream, but the touch this time was gentle, enveloping the whole peak. Sunny offered, and Pamela took, but it wasn't cruel. There was an offer in return. A gift.

  Sunny buried her hands in Pamela's blonde hair, not pushing or pulling, just massaging her, scratching, in gratitude. Pamela turned her head to let out a purr before sliding lower to kiss her stomach.

  "Goddamn," Sunny said. She didn't want to slow down. She didn't wanted to speed up.

  She wanted to be here, with Pamela.

  "I know," Pamela murmured, and Sunny let herself believe that Pamela did know.

  Pamela wriggled between parted legs and bowed her head, and at the first deliberately rough touch of tongue on clit it became sex again. All karmic presence and fluid, unsettling peace remained, but it was still sex. Sunny knew how to give into that.

  She felt a glorious urgency as Pamela explored and teased her. Pamela was making sounds, murmuring, hungry sounds, and Sunny joined her with guttural moans and soon endless shivering. Her toes curled.

  Pamela's tongue slipped inside her and something broke. Broke in two—her heart, her brain, her hips—it didn't matter, she was split open and radiating all of her secrets and passion, everything flooding out of her, riding an unexpectedly sudden orgasm that she felt everywhere at once and then it escaped her, leaving her lonely, whimpering for it again.

  Pamela nibbled her thigh, bringing her to peace again, and Sunny let out a satisfied moan.

  "I need to do this more often," she quipped when her breath sank back into her, heavy, sealing her back up.

  "You taste like—" Pamela hesitated. "Magic. God, that's a stupid thing to say. Even for me."

  "Do you say stupid things often?" Sunny let out a chuckle, eyes closed.

  "Oh, sure. I tell people they taste like magic all the damn time."

  Sunny stroked Pamela's head, and then groped for her shoulder, to pull her up. Pamela consented to lie beside her, kissing her shoulder, playing with her breast. Still apparently horny as fuck.

  "What should I do with you?" Sunny asked, cupping between Pamela's thighs with no preamble, sinking into wetness and heat.

  "God," Pamela rolled her head. "I don't know."

  "What do you like?" Sunny teased her entrance.

  "Yeah..." Pamela breathed. "I like to be fucked."

  Sunny slipped a finger inside her, retreated, decided two would fit.

  Pamela rolled onto her back, grasping Sunny's wrist to bring her along.

  "Fucked hard," Pamela said.

  "I can oblige," Sunny said, and she did, thrusting into Pamela with force, enough that Pamela's hips rocked with each intrusion. Sweat beaded on Pamela's skin, and she was flushed pink, and she was shifting so that Sunny's fingers would go deeper.

  Pamela didn't close her eyes against the thrusting. Instead, she met Sunny's gaze, lidded and intense. "I like to be rendered helpless in bed. It hits this spot deep inside me. I don't know. I feel safest under someone else's power. I mean, this is an invitation, is what I'm saying."

  "Intriguing," Sunny said. She was impressed Pamela could still talk, when she herself had been rendered helpless by a kiss or two. Deliberate, controlled concentration she saw in Pamela's expression.

  "It gets me into a lot of trouble," Pamela said, between breaths.

  "With strangers?"

  "With friends—acquaintances. Maybe I should have gone with a stranger long ago."

  "Is this working?" Sunny asked. She wasn't the type to solicit feedback, usually not really caring, but suddenly she felt compared to countless men and women.

  "God," Pamela said. "It isn't usually like this—this..."

  The incoherence was coming as Pamela got ever slicker and hotter against her hand. Pamela's nipples were hard points. Her jaw was clenched.

  "Men aren't good at it because they just use brute force. They're big and hard and it makes them lazy. Women can do it, but women..." Pamela was panting now, the words coming out in little rushes. "Women can hurt."

  "Isn't that the truth."

  Their gazes met, shared something, maybe compassion, then they each focused on business. Sunny pressed Pamela until she seemed to lose control, and breathing became difficult, and rocking became erratic. It was hard to do—breaking through an athlete's control of her body—and rewarding as hell. She sealed Pamela's mouth with a kiss. Pamela screamed, and struggled, and a shudder went through her that shook them both.

  Pamela relaxed, surrendering to and then returning the kiss, air flowing easily through her nose, the rest of her limp.

  Sunny withdrew, and Pamela shuddered again then smiled.

  There was blood on the tip of Sunny's fingers. "Oops."

  "I don't feel a thing," Pamela said.

  "Nail must have cut you."

  Pamela nodded. "Good thing we already had that awkward 'Are you clean?' talk."

  "Yes, very useful."

  Sunny kissed Pamela again, lightly, and then looked at her questioningly.

  "Oh, I'm ready for round two," Pamela said.

  "Me too. Definitely."

  "Well, I already know one thing you like..." Pamela's voice had a lilting quality to it. "What else?"

  "That thing I just did to you?"

  "Mm."

  "Do it to me."

  Pamela pounced.

  They made love again, then drank water out of the mini-fridge, then ordered room service.

  Then the awkward conversation. "You staying?" Sunny asked. It was her room, so she supposed she had the burden to make the overture.

  "Can I?" Pamela's response hinted at more than politeness.

  "I'd really like it if you did."

  "Okay, but I sleep late."

  "I'll probably have to leave early. But stay as long as you like," Sunny said.

  "Don't wake me."

  "Okay... does this mean we're going to stay up late?"

  "It's already three A.M."

  So they curled up in each other's arms, naked but showered and refreshed, and watched a varied assortment of Law and Orders.

  "Is this what your job is like?" Pamela asked.

  "Oh yeah, exactly."

  Pamela spoke in-depth about every guest star and background character. Which stage shows they were in, who their agents were, how being the murderer paid better than the victim.

  In turn, Sunny spoke of the five boroughs, and all the location shoots, and quibbled with the wonderfully expansive size of every apartment. Their hotel room, they agreed, could hold three of their apartments.

  Pamela fell asleep, almost without warning, around 5 A.M. Sunny already knew her schedule. Awake at eleven or twelve, lunch, hitting the gym or going to auditions, Starbucks, then the show.

  She knew so much about Pamela already.

  Sunny stayed awake, looking at New York outside their window, not usually seen from so far up. She tried not to think too hard about what was going on beside her. The beautiful woman asleep, who already knew more about Sunny than most people—it had all just slipped out—and was staying anyway. Who felt safe in her presence
.

  If she only knew, Sunny thought and then wondered what that meant. Was she dangerous? Or just hard-hearted? Hurting Pamela would be par for the course, but usually she would just shrug it off. Not her fault, the job's. That's just how things were. Sex and disappearing—if not physically, then in every other way. Just a spook.

  But she didn't want to leave. She wanted to stay.

  Why?

  "Fuck it," she muttered, and Pamela mewed in response but didn't wake up. Sunny let herself sleep.

  In the morning, after the best three hours of sleep in her life, she dithered and paced and then left a note before heading back into the real world.

  #

  Pamela found the note at 12:15. "Call me, text me, here's my number."

  Pamela texted. "What's your work schedule like?"

  The ten minutes until the reply came were interminable. Pamela's palms sweated.

  "Open."

  "I'm going to the gym around 2:00. Come hang out?" She texted the address.

  Sunny replied. "Okay. See you there. No yoga."

  "Yoga pants?" Pamela texted but got no reply.

  She was using the free weights at 2:30 when Sunny found her. In the light, Sunny was no less handsome—black hair, prominent cheekbones, intense eyes—icy blue, she'd discovered—and Pamela found it hard to believe they'd been naked and vulnerable together the night before.

  "Do you even lift, brah?" Pamela asked.

  Sunny cracked a smile and sat on the bench across from her. "I run."

  "How much?"

  "Three miles a day, five on weekends."

  Pamela nodded.

  "They wanted me to buy a membership to get in here."

  "Oh, I forgot about that. Did you?"

  Sunny shook her head. She pushed back her leather coat and revealed her gold shield.

  "Right."

  "Will it get me backstage, too?"

  "Tonight?" Pamela lifted her eyebrows.

  Sunny shook her head. "Nah, working tonight."

  "Tomorrow?" Pamela asked.

  "Yeah. Tomorrow."

  They smiled at each other.

  "Treadmill," Pamela said.

  "Elliptical?"

  "Fuck, really? I'll be all grunty."

  "Just how I like it."

  Pamela blushed. It was a pleasant feeling.

  Sunny shrugged out of her coat. She wore a bright blue tourist track suit underneath.