Free The Color of Love by Radclyffe Page A

masculine in power.
Beautiful. Emily swallowed. “I’ll be in the living room. Please, take your
time.”
    She heard Derian laugh as she hurried away. A
door closed behind her, and she breathed a sigh of relief at having a few
moments to collect herself. She so needed to find her balance around Derian, a
new and confounding experience. She appreciated beautiful women for the
aesthetics, who didn’t? The female form was such a fierce combination of
delicacy and strength—the female face endlessly captivating. Why else would
museums be filled with centuries of effort trying to capture the mystery of
woman? Derian shouldn’t have any more effect on her than an exquisite painting
or a spectacular sculpture, but she kept losing her breath when she looked at
her. And now she had the image of her nude emblazoned in her memory.
    Totally her fault. If she’d been thinking
instead of enjoying a second half-glass of champagne, she would’ve realized she
was stepping into Derian’s private space when she drifted into the hall. But
she’d hardly expected her to be naked. The woman was so unbelievably casual
about physical matters, touching effortlessly if respectfully, and treating her
own body as if it was nothing special, and it certainly was. Special.
Refreshing, exciting.
    And best not to think about that too much.
Perhaps she’d had a little too much of the very fine champagne after all. That
must be it, although she didn’t actually feel disinhibited in the least. After
all, she didn’t actually plan to go through with the mini-fantasy she’d had of running her palm over the
gentle slope of Derian’s chest and down…
    Emily soundly set the unfinished flute of
champagne down on an end table and dragged her mind away from dangerous
territory. Determined to banish thoughts of Derian, naked or not, she scanned
the living room again, finally pinpointing what she’d thought missing. Bookcases.
Her much smaller apartment was crammed with bookshelves in every available inch
of wall, nook, and cranny. And even then, she didn’t have enough room for
everything she wanted to keep and had piles of reads and to-be-reads secreted
under tables, nightstands, even the bed. Sure, she was a child of the modern
age and had plenty of digital books on several different electronic readers,
but she still loved the feel of the physical form and had always been a
collector. First editions, odd editions, little-known titles that represented
something new and exciting at the time. She loved to keep those, each a piece
of history that marked her own life, or milestones in publishing, or changes in
the world around her.
    Derian had no bookcases, at least none
visible in the main part of the apartment, which was unusual given the
traditional décor. Somehow, with her being
Henrietta’s niece, Emily would’ve expected Derian to be a book lover. She had
no idea why she thought that, now. It wasn’t as if a love of literature was
genetically inherited. Her parents had certainly instilled in her a love of
reading by example—her mother, more than her father, who restricted most of his
reading to world news, finance, politics, and other areas that impacted his
work. Her mother had been the fanciful one, reading everything from romances,
mysteries, fantasy, biographies, to graphic novels. Emily smiled, remembering
the first time her mother had shared a grown-up comic book with her. She could
still feel the surge of excitement of holding her mother’s copy of the bound
book with the gleaming, colorful pages and how special the shared moment had
been. So many moments in her life marked by the discovery of a beloved book.
    “You can turn around now,” Derian said
softly. “I’m presentable.”
    Emily turned slowly, thinking Derian had been
more than presentable just a few moments before. Finally, she managed to keep
at least some embarrassing words to herself and said nothing.
    Derian grinned as if she were still reading
her mind, which was