Best Lesbian Romance 2014 by Radclyffe Read Free Book Online

dissolve.
    â€œIt isn’t. I mean it. You looked lost.”
    â€œYou’re not going to start talking about accepting Jesus as my savior, are you?”
    â€œNo saviors. I don’t believe in that stuff.”
    â€œBut you believe in past lives?”
    â€œSometimes. Right now I do.” She reached across the space that divided us and rested her hand on my forearm. I allowed her hand to touch me, allowed the strong pull of human contact.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said. “I’m rusty. It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”
    â€œI’m not lost,” I said, but it had been a long time since I’d let a woman touch me.
    Clara brought her eyes to mine. “You’re very beautiful,” she said, cupping my chin in her hand.
    My entire body reeled, and we stared at one another, hooked by the taut line of connection threading between us. If I kissed her now, it would be acknowledging the half-animal that careened inside me. It would be admitting I liked being pulled in by her. And though I wanted it, it seemed too dangerous to let the wildthing loose, desperate as it was for air. What good was a fish with legs? Or a girl with gills?
    Clara’s lips, her face, were so close. I could smell the whiskey on her breath, the warmth of it mixed with the exhaust in the air and her vanilla perfume. It was an inch, two, to taste her.
    A horn blared past, smearing the angry sound across the yard. In a flash I stood, moving through the screen door, to the kitchen, my car. As I put my cup into the sink, the door opened again and Clara was there. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
    â€œYou didn’t,” I said. “But I should go. I—” My words came tumbling out, confused, my mouth cottony from the whiskey, my body flushed. “Why is everything white?”
    â€œI like an empty canvas,” she said.
    â€œYou’re a painter too?”
    â€œNo. Metaphorically.”
    â€œYou don’t have anything on the walls.”
    â€œIt’s more about possibility,” she said, leaning toward the wall closest to her and drawing something—a name, a curvy mermaid, a violin; I couldn’t tell—on it with her finger.
    â€œIsn’t that tiresome? Always waiting for what could be?”
    â€œYou tell me.”
    It was as if she’d seen directly into my heart, into all that I’d held close, the protected hopes that I’d been too frightened to fulfill. I walked through life veiling that fragile space, and now someone I barely knew had looked right at it. My life was stalled out. I wanted all those next steps into adulthood I’d not taken: a partner, a house, a family, a career—and at the same time, those steps were a litany of normalcy that I knew would never fit.
    We stood staring at one another for what seemed like a long time. My lips were dry, my underarms damp with sweat.
    â€œSienna.” Clara stepped toward me, brought her hand to myhip. “I meant what I said. You’re very beautiful.” Her face was so open, so tender.
    â€œThank you. Thanks for the drink,” I said. “But I have to go.” I stepped back from her.
    â€œThanks for letting me drive—it’s a great car. Runs like a dream. You must take good care of it.”
    â€œIt was my father’s,” I said. My father had taken good care of it.
    Clara smiled, slow and sad, and again the wild oxygen of desire flared through me. I let myself out.
    I didn’t check my phone for messages until I got home. Poppy had texted twice and called once. Sienna, just wanted to make sure you’re okay. You seemed a little out of it and then you disappeared. Call me.
    Most of the night I lay awake, thinking about Clara’s narrow nose, her funny poof of hair, the way she’d held my chin so gently in her fingers. When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of her driving, my hand on her thigh as the