get going. I don’t want to impose.”
Eve reached across the table and touched Mei’s hand. “Stay. Please?”
“Why?” Mei paused. Her dark brows scrunched up in a frown. “You hardly know me.” Then her eyes narrowed with suspicion and she glared at Eve. “You want sex? That’s it, isn’t it?”
Eve shrugged. “Sex is always an option, but only if you’re interested. You’re a link, Mei. Someone who knew me when I was a child. I have so few memories of friends from my childhood. In a way, you’re the closest thing to family I’ve had since I left my last foster home. Stay, please?”
Mei cocked her head to one side. Obviously she still wasn’t buying it. “Do you live here? In this motel?”
Eve shook her head. “No. I came back here on business, but I had car trouble. My friend is on his way to fix the truck. I expect him in a couple days.”
“Boyfriend?” Mei pulled the chair out and sat.
“Could be. Some day.”
“What happens when the truck’s fixed?” Mei twisted a strand of her long, dark hair. Her constant motion told Eve a lot more than mere words. Her eyes, hands, smile…all spoke volumes of Mei’s nervous energy and lack of trust. “Where will you go then? Where do you live?”
“Nowhere, right now.” Eve sighed. “Montana, maybe. I’ve got friends there. Friends who want me to live with them, but I wasn’t ready. Like the boyfriend. I think he loves me. It scares the crap out of me, that kind of relationship. I needed time to figure out what I want to do with my life. What I really need.”
“Yeah. I wish I knew what I wanted.” Mei laughed. “Other than a bath and a clean change of clothes.”
Perfect! Eve stood up. “That I can do. We’re about the same size. You can borrow some of my things for now. Get a shower, some clean clothes. Later we can get a cab and go shopping.”
Mei blinked, but for the first time since entering the room, she sat perfectly still. Eve realized she was fighting tears.
“You’d do that for me? Buy me clothes?”
“Of course. You were my friend years ago, Mei. I’d like to think we can be friends again.”
Mei nodded. Then she grabbed her purse. She didn’t hesitate when Eve pointed her toward the shower. Nor did she seem to realize her thoughts were growing clearer by the minute as Eve consistently probed her mind. She had to be Chanku. Could Mei be the reason Eve had been drawn back to Florida? It was too perfect to be purely coincidental.
Anton was going to love it! His ongoing argument with Stefan over fate versus coincidence was gaining credence by the day. Eve almost picked up the phone to call Anton. Almost. She hesitated, fingers spread in the act of grabbing her cell phone off the nightstand.
How easy it had become, to think of Anton, of Keisha, Stefan, and Xandi when she had something to share. Already she thought of them as family. Why hadn’t her thoughts rushed to Adam? Or even to Oliver?
Because they scare the crap out of you. She wasn’t ready for the powerful connection she felt with both men, but especially with Adam. Not yet. It was easier not to think of them. Knowing what little she did of the two men, she still expected at least one, if not both, of them to show up within a day or two.
Eve curled her fingers into the palm of her hand and listened to the sound of the shower. Mei was in there now, her slim body naked beneath the spray, her long black hair flowing with the rivulets of water as it sluiced over her shoulders, trailed between her breasts.
A sense of well-being poured into Eve, and she knew she was catching Mei’s thoughts and feelings. She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. She would think of Mei, of possibilities. Adam was on his way. Eve knew it the way she knew the sun would rise each morning. He was coming and he wasn’t alone. She shivered with a strong sense of premonition. There was power in this room, in the woman blissfully enjoying the shower. Power in the throbbing arousal that surged through Eve’s body at the mere thought of Adam, of Oliver…and Mei.
She wrapped her arms around her waist and bowed down until her head was between her knees. Desire shimmered, hot and sultry, pulsing in her veins, engorging her sex. Desire fueled by images of herself, of Adam and Oliver and Mei, a tangle of arms and legs, slick with the lush dampness of sweat and saliva and all the intimate fluids that bodies produced in the heat of passion.
She’d gone three weeks without sex. Three weeks of easing her own needs but never satisfying them. Three weeks with the powerful surge of arousal that accompanied each shift, growing and spreading with the same rush and power as the blood in her veins or the oxygen in her lungs. Arousal so much a part of her very existence she’d become one living, breathing, pulsing creature of lust.
She’d risked everything to bring two strange men to her room, just for sex. Thank goodness she’d survived that idiotic decision. The risk with Mei was different. With Mei, she could lose another bit of herself. Strangely, though, the need for independence that had driven her away from Adam and Montana somehow faded, now that she’d found Mei.
Even Adam wasn’t as frightening anymore. She realized she missed him, wanted him for more than what he could do to ease her basic sexual needs.
That was definitely a step in the right direction.
Smiling, Eve stared at the closed bathroom door, imagining Mei. Picturing the younger woman’s lean body slick from the shower, imagining Mei’s hot mouth between her legs, licking and sucking, bringing Eve closer and closer to climax.
She leaned back in her chair and spread her legs wide, imagining and calling out silently, in the way of the Chanku. Calling to any mind willing and able to listen. Her breasts ached, her womb clenched and the need built. Eve closed her eyes against the growing arousal that had become as much a part of her identity as her name. She thought of Mei, and then she thought of Adam and Oliver and the things the four of them could do together, in that nice big king-size bed, back at the house in Montana.
But Mei was here, so most of all, she thought of Mei.
Mei closed her eyes as the hot water cascaded over her body. She’d not had a decent shower in weeks, bathing instead in the dirty sinks in public restrooms and quick showers at the occasional homeless shelter when she’d been lucky enough to find a bed. This was luxury unlike anything she’d experienced for far too long.
It felt wonderful. It felt beyond wonderful when she washed her hair with the expensive shampoo on the side of the tub and used the conditioner she’d never once been able to afford in her life. She’d grabbed a new razor out of a pack on the counter and, while she’d never had much body hair, went ahead and took the time to shave what was there.
Sleek and smooth and clean. It just didn’t get much better, especially since there was still plenty of hot water and she didn’t have to get out if she didn’t want to. Suddenly Eve popped into her thoughts and just like that, Mei’s nipples puckered up into tight, sensitive little beads and she felt a rush of heat between her legs.
What was it about Eve that turned her on so much? Mei had never been all that particular about her sexual partners, but she was most definitely heterosexual. At least she thought she was, until she thought of Eve. Eve was definitely beautiful. She was kind, and she smiled a lot. She had a fun sense of humor, but there was something in her
