Free Lunatic Fringe by Allison Moon Page A

all of
you. Where’s the excitement in that?”
    “ What about the newbie?”
Hazel pressed.
    “ This newbie,” Renee
replied, nodding her head toward Lexie, “doesn’t need a game to get
what she wants.”
    Lexie froze. Renee cast her a
flirtatious smile.
    “ Oh yeah?” Hazel
teased.
    Renee rolled her eyes, then looked
directly at Lexie. She spoke in a voice just loud enough for
Hazel’s benefit. “Lexie?” Renee smiled at the implied dare. “May I
kiss you?”
    Lexie didn’t know the right answer. She
had just been scolded for being unwilling to say no, but now the
rules of the game had changed. Renee smiled, politely waiting for
her answer. Lexie whispered, “Sure,” lowering her gaze to avoid
those darkly probing eyes.
    Renee captured Lexie’s chin again and
pulled their faces together. Her lips brushed against Lexie’s,
sending tiny, tingling bolts up and down Lexie’s back. The skin
behind her ears tickled as warmth spread from her lips to her
cheeks, then to her neck and the tips of her ears, until finally it
washed across her chest, warming her completely.
    Hazel harrumphed. “Screw you guys,
then. I’m dancing.” She leapt to her feet, dancing before the music
even started.
    “ Turn it up,
Corwin!”
    “ I’ve only got fifteen
percent battery left.”
    “ So?! What else are you
going to use it for, checking the weather?”
    Corwin rolled her eyes and raised the
volume.
    Hazel cheered and ran in place as the
electroclash banged out of Corwin’s tinny laptop speakers. She
burst into a flurry of drunken movement, waving her hands above her
head like a go-go dancer. Sharmalee giggled and jumped up to join
her.
    Renee leaned in to Lexie. “That was
nice,” she murmured. “Thank you.”
    “ You’re welcome,” Lexie
said, unsure of what else to say.
    “ Good,” Renee said, setting
the glass on the table with an empty clink. “In that case, may I
kiss you again?”
    Lexie’s mouth was already half open;
she licked her lower lip. Renee grinned and leaned in again,
pressing Lexie back onto the carpet. On the ground Lexie was cozy,
warm, and slightly drunk. Renee’s soft, black hair filtered the
candlelight in strange ways, the flickering light peeking through
her tiny curls like sunlight through tree leaves. Renee traced her
mouth down Lexie’s neck, her hands feather-touching the bare skin
above the collar of Lexie’s shirt.
    Lexie grasped Renee’s hips. Though
Lexie was shorter than Renee, she felt solid, sturdy, compared to
her. Renee was built like an egret, with delicate bones and long,
thin limbs. There was a word for Renee’s body, but Lexie couldn’t
come up with it. As Renee stroked her body and kissed her neck,
Lexie struggled for the word. It started with an “S” or maybe a
“C.” Lexie’s mind derailed in an endless loop of language. She lost
herself in the search for the right word, forgetting Renee’s touch
and the effects of the wine and the setting. Mulling the word that
clung to the tip of her tongue, begging to be identified, she
placed in the folder in her head that held all of the things she
was learning about Renee.
    Renee pulled back, the corona of light
flaring behind her hair, wrenching Lexie from her
reverie.
    “ You okay?” Renee asked,
looking at her askance.
    Lexie rose to her elbows. “Yeah,” she
said.
    “ Your head’s somewhere
else.”
    “ Oh,” Lexie paused, waiting
for a clearer cue on how to proceed. Renee didn’t seem inclined to
offer her any.
    “ I’m sorry,” Lexie said.
“I’m just feeling . . . a lot.” It wasn’t a lie, but it didn’t
cover the whole truth of the situation, either. The problem was,
Lexie didn’t know the truth of the situation. She just knew that
everything was beginning to teeter out of balance. She felt like
she was diving too quickly into an irrevocable choice of alliance
to an alien culture. Yet she felt as though she could belong here,
that she could find among these women a place for
herself.
    “