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The confident—albeit slightly shy—stranger from the bar and the absolute force-of-nature who’d almost taken her against the elevator doors were gone. Magdalene was face to face with the trembling shell of that woman.

Her ragged breaths were loud in the confines of the small space—

Small space!

“I’m claustrophobic. Ah, not much, but enough, I guess. I’m sorry. I, ah…”

The halting words sounded nothing like the woman from the bar, yet they confirmed Magdalene’s earlier suspicions.

Oh hell…

Slowly, unseeingly, her companion’s hand reached for the elevator wall behind her. She took a tentative step back, then another, and then slid down the mirrored wall to the carpeted floor at Magdalene’s feet.

Even sitting down, she was shaking so hard, Magdalene thought she would unravel at the seams.Surely not…But one look at the woman almost sprawled on the floor told her all she needed.

Panic attack.

For reasons she didn’t want to analyze too closely, for the second time in one day, Magdalene Nox did something totally uncharacteristic. She sat down, Armani skirt be damned, and held out a hand, laying it palm up on the floor, the carpet scratchy and disgusting beneath her skin.

Years of being a teacher and extensive psychological training had fully prepared her for this kind of incident, no matter how much she told herself she nevercared like this, ’This’being getting involved with whomever she chose to spend the night with. She had her reasons; she fucked them and left them. The most she could stretch her own benevolence to was to make sure the door was fully locked on her way out.

Right now, though? She was well aware of what she needed to do, yet she remained puzzled by her own willingness to do it. But then she had been surprising herself all evening. What was one more?

When a trembling hand slowly lowered itself on top of hers, she gently intertwined their fingers, anchoring more than holding.

“Star Trek or Star Wars? And believe me, there is only one correct answer to this question.”

Her tack seemed to catch the woman by surprise, as she let out a huff of laughter that might have been a sob. In the eerie red glow of the emergency light, the already massive eyes seemed to grow further, and then the swollen mouth opened and closed, making Magdalene think of how she’d been the one who had gotten those lips to swell under the onslaught of her own. She pressed her thighs closer together as the stranger took her time answering.

“Ah, if I say Star Trek, will the answer signal the end of our night?”

The tentative reply made Magdalene’s lips twitch, and she squeezed the fingers lightly.

“I guess that would depend on the captain of choice.”

“Janeway, always Janeway. Coffee and let the world burn.”

Magdalene was almost afraid that they wouldn’t make it to the room. She felt like crawling out of her skin, desire like fire raised the hairs on her arms and shallowed her breathing.

* * *

The momentthey were rescued from the elevator, it was a race against the clock and against each other to get to the room and then… Then all bets were off. Everything was off, really. Her blouse was the first thing to be hastily undone and flung somewhere in one deft motion, and then a hot mouth abandoned hers to proceed to kiss and bite and lick every inch of her exposed neck and chest, hands pinning her against the door, leaving her no choice but to submit. Again.

With the last vestiges of cogent thought, Magdalene considered how strange it was, this position she found herself in. Since her divorce and the subsequent one-night-stands and short-term affairs, she’d always been the one in control. It was merely easier that way. Not that she never allowed the other women to touch her, she very much did. But she guided those interactions and was always the one in charge of how they progressed.

To understand that she didn’t actually want to control this encounter? And to realize it like this? She was 46 years old, and it had never occurred to her that all she wanted, all she needed, was to let go and to be taken.

Like what was happening right now. There was no other word for it. She was being taken, her body consumed, her hands pinned, and she was reveling in the rush of power that flooded her, despite being motionless, despite being held very still. It made her feel invincible, hungry, ravenous for more…

She freed her hands and plunged them into that burnished gold she’d been so greedy to touch earlier and tugged hard. The stranger gasped and lifted her face from where she had certainly been leaving a dark mark on the top of Magdalene’s breast, lips crimson red now, blood pulsing under the silk-smooth skin. Magdalene had to have it, that mouth, she needed it on hers, desperately, like air. And so she pulled until they were kissing again.

Even then, it wasn’t enough, to the point where she wanted to stomp her foot and demand more. And demands be damned, she would plead and beg until she was given what she wanted, even as she was surrounded by it.

“Please…”

Magdalene raked her nails up and down those lanky arms, digging into the muscle, wanting to burrow into the bone, to anchor herself in this sensation of finally being given what she craved.

The pleading seemed to spurn on her lover, ravishing then abandoning her mouth once again, tracking down her body, licking and biting everything within reach, her neck, her collarbones, tracing invisible lines down her torso, branding her in ways Magdalene hadn’t even fathomed were possible–like tattoos, small bites, nips, and open-mouthed kisses were driving her insane for more.