Free The Color of Love by Radclyffe

exuded the same careful attention to detail as a five-star
hotel, and with the exception of the few employees like Ralph, was nearly as
impersonal. Somehow she had stripped her life of all personal
connections—valets delivered her car, bellmen picked up her laundry, porters
and other attendants carried her luggage and delivered her food. Women almost
as impersonal—charming and momentarily entertaining, but all the same, near
strangers—satisfied her need for human contact where sex was a by-product, but
not the goal. She was never one to foist responsibility for her situation onto
others. She’d made her life what she wanted it to be, one of no attachments, no
duties, and no obligations beyond the financial, the easiest of all for her to
manage. She had no reason to complain in these odd moments when she found
herself alone and the awareness registered, the isolation so intense the pain
was palpable.
    Vehemently, she twisted off the taps and
stepped from the shower into the steamy room. She saw herself as only a wavy
outline in the cloudy mirror. Even when the mirrors were crystal clear, she
rarely glanced at herself. Maybe she was hoping to avoid seeing her reflection
disappear along with the substance of her life.
    “And aren’t we just getting existential,” she
muttered, vigorously toweling her hair in an effort to restore a little sanity
to the brain beneath. Wallowing in self-pity was not her style, and truthfully,
she rarely even thought about herself or where she was headed. The only ones
offended by her nomadic lifestyle were Martin and possibly Aud, although she’d
never said so outright. Henrietta’s sudden life-threatening illness had dragged
her out of her complacency and shattered the lethal ennui, reminding her that
life could still kick her in the gut, no matter how carefully she distanced
herself from anything that might touch her. She hadn’t counted on Henrietta
disturbing the touchstone of her life by almost dying. Henrietta was just HW,
like the Atlantic was always the Atlantic. Wherever Derian roamed, she knew
where her center rested. Henrietta was the force that kept her connected to the
world in any real way. Now she felt like a balloon on a fraying tether, in
danger of floating off completely.
    “HW is not going anywhere. You’re going to
make damn sure of it.” Derian tossed the towel into the laundry chute, found
the half-empty glass of champagne on the vanity, and downed it in a swift gulp.
Enough already. What she needed was a meal to restore her strength, which Ralph
could arrange with a quick phone call, and a woman to take her thoughts off her
own pointless musings. And she certainly had that. Emily May was far more
interesting than any woman she’d spent time with in recent memory. Everything
she needed was only a few minutes away.
    “Are you doing okay?” Derian called as she
left the bathroom and headed toward her bedroom.
    Emily materialized at the other end of the
hall and stopped as abruptly as if she’d run into a stone wall. “Oh! Sorry.”
    “You know, you say that a lot.” Derian
stopped, cocked her head. “Is it just me that makes you uncomfortable, or
everyone?”
    “No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. I’m not.
Uncomfortable. Usually,” Emily snapped, turning her head away.
    “Then it’s me. Why?”
    “You have to ask?” Emily pointed one arm in
Derian’s direction. “Have you noticed that you’re naked?”
    Derian glanced down. “Oh, that. Should I
apologize, then?”
    “No. I’m fine. Apology not needed.” Emily
kept her gaze averted, but she hadn’t blanked her vision fast enough to
obliterate the impression of Derian’s naked form, now firmly impregnated in her
brain cells. Lean, toned, tanned, with enticing sleek lines sweeping from
compact breasts down a long abdomen to the faint swell of hips and muscular
thighs. Derian was as brutally elegant as the race cars she appeared to love, a
perfect machine in human form, feminine in grace,