Best Women's Erotica 2011 by Violet Blue

just wanted to see you in trouble, that’s all. You’re always so adorable when you think you’ve been naughty.”
    Gently, you kiss the top of my head and squeeze your arms tighter around me. I want to be your captive forever.

RAINBOW NIGHT
    Giselle Renarde
     
     
    Adele spun her ring around her finger until the heavy princess-cut diamond faced the room. It was so new she hadn’t taken it to be resized yet. How predictable of Elliot not to know her ring size, even after so many years and so much jewelry. But how could she complain? At least he had the foresight to have his assistant remind him when their anniversary rolled around and in time to have their jeweler set aside something rare and exclusive. No, her sole complaint this evening was that neither Sissy nor Hue had taken notice of her new treasure.
    Ahem. Adele cleared her throat just loudly enough to draw Sissy’s attention from the male-dominated conversation. Hue, with her MBA and her crossbred Vietnamese-Manhattan accent, glanced briefly in Adele’s direction before rejoining the market talk.
    She tried again. “Did nobody notice the ring Elliot bought me?”
    Even the husbands ceased their self-important ramblings to
turn their attention to Adele’s diamond. Hue’s expression turned lovey-dovey as she nursed her lemon fizz. The woman was tough as nails in business but always a sucker for romance. “Was that for your anniversary?” she cooed. “How nice.” Poking her husband in the ribs, she chuckled, “This one’s always buying me cars.”
    “Impressive,” Sissy agreed, with a deliberate glance in Adele’s direction. “A ring that big would look terribly gaudy on me, but I’ve always said the look suits older women rather well.” And with a saccharine smile, she set her third cosmopolitan down and folded her hands in her Chanel-clad lap.
    Normally, Adele might have been peeved, but the new gift put her in a refreshingly giving mood. Just look at the poor girl’s bare fingers! she thought. Sissy claimed to prefer the cleaner look of her shard-studded engagement ring and plain-Jane wedding band, but even those outside their circle knew Roger’s capital was dwindling. Rumor had it Sissy’d even been spotted shopping in a discount supermarket. And Adele had a sneaking suspicion the bottle of Domaine Bouchard Père & Fils she’d brought to dinner last week was in fact a Cuvée Saint-Pierre with a false label pasted on.
    How the mighty had fallen.
    It was Sissy’s Roger who broke the silence. “Well, I think your ring is as lovely as you are, Adele.” Coming from anyone else, that might have been a shot, but Roger was rather too stupid to come up with clever quips. Pretty, though. One of those Harvard boys who never aged a day over twenty-one.
    “Yes,” Pat chimed in. Hue’s husband was eerily intelligent, but he never said much. “Congratulations to you both.”
    And then the conversation drifted back to the stock market and everything that was boring in the world of the elite. How tiresome her friends had grown—her husband along with them, if she was being honest. Had they always been so dull, or had
her perspective simply evolved over time? She was hostess. It was her duty to save the evening from the depths of dreariness. “Let’s play a game!” she called out, raising her brandy in the air as she rose from her Art Shoppe chair.
    Again, she caught nobody’s attention but Sissy’s. “What sort of game?”
    Adele hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I don’t know, really. Backgammon?”
    Sissy didn’t even reply before turning her gaze in Elliot’s direction as he went on and on about Dubai. If only she read newspapers or had something insightful to contribute. It didn’t even have to be news, just some piece of information that would capture everybody’s imagination.
    “You know what I heard?” Adele cut in. She asked the question loudly enough to draw everybody’s eyes. “I saw a report on television…it’s really