Free Best Lesbian Romance 2014 by Radclyffe Page B

was paying particularly close attention to my bleeding temple. I had a hard time focusing because my vision wouldn’t stop whiting out and her eyes kept transforming into six dancing pairs of blue. The last thing I remember was her leaning forward to cradle the back of my head with her palm, hot breath panting across my forehead as she soothingly traced her tongue across my bleeding wound with purposeful flicks.
    I woke up slowly as the sounds of crashing waves and salty, moist air invaded my senses. For a moment, before I opened my eyes, I imagined I was floating out in the middle of the sea, drifting, guided only by the fickle whimsies of the wind. The feeling of letting go was peaceful and I didn’t want it to end, but I knew it was time to come ashore, and since I was curious to see where I landed, I opened my eyes. I was lying in a soft bundle of blankets on some kind of raised dais. A bamboo table and matching chairs were on one side of me and a small sink and stove on the other. My shopping bags were neatly arranged against the wall. The illumination of several candles gave off an eerie glow that made shadows appear and disappear. I sat up reluctantly, not wanting to leave the comfort of the cocoon-likebed. I remembered my head wound and tentatively touched it but there was no trace of the previous cut; no pain either, even when I rubbed my forehead harder. No anything. It was as if it had never existed. But it did happen, didn’t it?
    â€œHello?” I called out, unsure of anything, and my echoing voice seemed to taunt me. I realized I was in a cave.
    â€œHello,” my rescuer, Caliana, answered in the same instant I felt a rush of air next to me that appeared to morph into her solid form. A wave of dizziness flooded through me as I turned toward her and blinked, trying to focus. She smiled at me shyly. “It’s good to see you awake.”
    â€œYou saved my life,” I said.
    â€œNot really. Those guys were just robbing you. They weren’t going to kill you. They had you targeted the moment you went to Gato’s Café.”
    I remembered the look on their faces and the promise of brutality in the grip of their hands. Somehow I knew she was downplaying the seriousness of the attack. “But you stopped them. I don’t understand how you were able to do that.”
    â€œI know some martial arts,” she said with a shrug. She gently touched the place on my temple where my cut had been. “How do you feel?”
    My eyes widened at the coolness of her touch and the simplicity of her explanation. Her strength was something I’d never seen in anyone, let alone a woman. She’d handled those men like she was twice their size. I wondered why that didn’t scare me more as I looked around, still trying to get my bearings. It was night now but her olive skin glowed as if lit by more than simple candles, and her eyes sparkled as if there was something hovering just beneath the surface of those tranquil turquoise pools, something that kept wavering as she regarded me with a deepening intensity. I wanted to sink back into thecocoon bed. With her. That last thought made me light-headed again. “Thank you.”
    It was all I could manage to say.
    She tilted her head as if she’d never heard these words before, her lips pressed together in a slight frown, and then she brightened again. “If you really want to thank me, then stay and have dinner with me. I just caught some excellent fish.”
    Had she also caught me? “You mean you not only know martial arts but you can cook too?” I smiled mischievously at her and she chuckled.
    â€œI can do a lot of things that might surprise you.”
    I quivered with an overwhelming wish to know what those things might be.
    â€œI’d love to have dinner with you,” I said.
    â€œGood,” she replied and stood up as she offered a hand to me.
    I clasped her hand, and as I got up from the bed and