The Color of Love by Radclyffe

go.”
    “We’re having dinner, remember?” Derian
smiled. “I’m sorry if I offended you. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
    Emily sighed. “You didn’t. I’m not offended
by a beautiful woman kissing me.”
    Derian’s smile turned to surprise. “Thank
you.”
    “Surely you’ve heard that before,” Emily
said, echoing Derian earlier.
    “Not when I actually believed it.” Derian
shook her head, as if chasing away an unwanted thought. “I called the hospital
while I was getting dressed. No change.”
    “I guess that’s good.” Emily was glad for the
abrupt shift in subject. Jousting with Derian over the subject of kisses and
dates was far too dangerous.
    “I think so.” Derian gestured to the table.
“I also called Ralph. Dinner should be here momentarily. I did promise you no
more than a forty-five-minute wait.”
    “I thought we were going out.”
    “I don’t know about you, but I’m beat.” Derian
pulled out a chair, held it as she watched Emily. “I thought this might be
quieter and more relaxing. Do you mind?”
    “It’s really not necessary. I can grab a
cab—”
    A knock sounded at the door.
    “Stay, Emily,” Derian said softly. “Please.”
    Emily sat.

Chapter Eight

    “Thanks, Peter,” Derian said to the porter who
delivered the large food trolley covered with gleaming stainless-steel chafing
dishes. “I’ll take it from here.”
    His face registered the slightest surprise
before he quickly nodded. “I’m happy to serve you and your guest, Ms.
Winfield.”
    “I can handle it, but thanks.” Derian stepped
aside so Peter could slide the cart into the room and closed the door behind
him. She didn’t want company. She wanted to be alone with Emily May, and
setting up the table would give her a few moments to get her game in order. She
hadn’t intended to kiss her. The thought had crossed her mind, that was true.
She’d wanted to kiss her from the moment she’d found her nearly asleep, waiting
for her outside the intensive care unit. Emily had looked vulnerable and
delicate, but Derian’d known better than to think she needed rescuing. She’d
seen Emily’s strength as well as the shadows of some past pain when she’d stood
by Henrietta’s bedside and declared her certainty that Henrietta would be all
right. Daring the Fates to disagree. Emily was anything but fragile, which made
her all the more desirable.
    But an inexplicable urge to shield her from
whatever plagued her and a primitive instinct to claim her attention were no
excuse for kissing her. She knew better than to toy with women who weren’t open
to being toyed with, and Emily was one of those. She didn’t give off a single
player vibe, nor had she given any indication she wanted to be kissed. Derian
was good at ferreting out signals, at reading seduction in apparent disinterest
that merely invited her to the chase, and she never pressed where she wasn’t
wanted. She hadn’t been thinking about sex when she’d given in to the impulse
to taste, she’d only been thinking about another touch—another incendiary
instant of contact that shook her more than the most abandoned encounter. This
time, she’d been the one pressed by desire, driven to break her own rules by an
unfamiliar need to stir in Emily the same kind of yearning that stirred in her.
    Emily had said she wasn’t offended by the
kiss, but taking liberties wasn’t like her. Derian didn’t want to stray into
those waters again. A woman, especially Henrietta’s protégé, who could so
easily make her forget all the reasons why she only played with players, had
danger written all over her. No—Emily was too close to home, too dangerous in
her appeal, too altogether beyond the safety zone.
    “I can’t say I’ve ever done this before,”
Emily said, glancing over her shoulder to watch Derian approach with the cart.
    “What’s that?” Derian asked, promptly
forgetting her resolution to stay away. Emily had a way of looking at her