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Overview
Every woman has secrets. But Sage never thought the lover she'd shared her life with for years had one big enough to blow their entire world apart.
With one shocking revelation, the life she'd taken for granted with Phil--decadent threesomes under the Miami moonlight, lazy afternoons in the home they'd shared for years, and the complete surrender to her deepest desires--is shattered. Left adrift, Sage begins to rebuild her life one piece at a time.
As she struggles to make sense of things again, her parents arrive from Jamaica for an unexpected visit and her own secrets threaten to destroy the little she has left. Can Sage find redemption in the one woman she turned her back on, or will she allow pride and her own self-destructive nature to ruin any chance at future happiness?
Number 4 in the How Sweet It Is series by the Lambda Literary Award finalist author of Bliss and Every Dark Desire.
Start with A Taste of Sin, Hungry for It, Return to Me (a short sequel to Hungry for It), Insatiable Appetites, then go on to Bittersweet (a novella) and Pleasure & Spice. All (except Return to Me and Bittersweet) are standalone, full-length novels featuring different couples in, and connected to, the group of Miami-based friends.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9798201674397 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Hills Publishing |
| Publication date: | 12/11/2021 |
| Series: | How Sweet It Is , #4 |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.64(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Trying to fit in a quickie with her girl before they both left home hadn't been one of Sage's best ideas. Those moments of frantic pleasure always left her wanting more, wanting to say "fuck it" to whatever obligations she had and tumble Phil back into the sheets so they could thoroughly enjoy each other until they were breathless and raw from satisfaction. But cancelling hadn't been an option for either of them tonight.
Sage discreetly sniffed her fingers as she made her way through the restaurant to the table where one of her friends already waited. Nuria, a sexy femme with thick, curling dreadlocks and a wicked smile, had her drink in hand and was idly looking around the busy restaurant when Sage walked up.
"Hey, macha." Nuria lifted her cheek for a kiss as Sage slid into the chair beside her at the round table prepped for four. She smelled dizzyingly of a dark and sweet perfume. "How's the happy, dysfunctional couple today?" she asked with a grin.
"We're good, as always." Sage pinched her friend's ass as payback for her rude comment about her and Phil. "No thanks to your bad mind."
"Bitch." Nuria laughed and playfully scraped her long nails over Sage's head, barely disturbing the low fade on the side and much longer, tight curls on top.
Seductively dressed in a white dress that contrasted with the even, cocoa dream of her skin, Nuria took up far more room than her average-sized body should have. Even seated and quiet, her larger-than-life personality surrounded her like the throbbing corona of the sun.
Along with Rémi and Dez, Nuria was one of Sage's closest friends. These women were the only ones who knew Sage at her gayest. Her most free. "Why are you here so early?" Sage barely glanced at the drink menu near her place setting. She knew what she wanted.
"I was already in the neighborhood," Nuria said.
"What, you're fucking somebody on this side of town?"
"Not every aspect of my life is about fucking, you know," she said, although her whiskey and dark chocolate eyes sparkled with a tease.
Nuria was well aware of her reputation within their circle of friends and out in the larger world, but she didn't do anything to tame it. She fucked who she wanted to, could drink any of their friends under the table and, although firmly in her thirties like the rest of their posse, seemed in no hurry to settle down. She was just as wild at thirty-three as she had been at twenty-three. Hell, probably even at thirteen.
Sage motioned the waitress over, ready to start the party. "Are you saying you weren't rolling around in somebody's sheets a couple of hours ago?" Her friend snickered. "It was one hour ago, thank you very much."
The waitress appeared, a pretty and very young thing with a septum piercing. She eyed Nuria with a curiosity Sage had long grown used to.
"What can I get for you tonight?" the waitress asked once she'd torn herself from the shameless eye fuck Nuria treated her to.
"Appleton Estate white rum," Sage said. "The whole bottle, with a pineapple juice mixer."
The girl nodded but didn't scribble anything down. "And you?" She turned to Nuria and Sage got an eyeful of her ass, tastefully displayed in black slacks, the pretty curve of her back, and the thick fall of black hair down to the middle of her back.
Sage fully expected Nuria to ask for the girl's number, because she did things like that, but her friend only asked for a seven and seven, smiling up at the girl with her whole body.
"Of course." The girl's voice was a little breathless. "I like your thing, by the way." She pointed at Nuria's piercing, a silver stud between her dark purple lower lip and the tip of her pointed chin. "Very retro."
Nuria blinked. "Uh ... thanks?" she muttered, frowning.
The girl smiled, then sashayed off.
Sage laughed. "You gotta leave these young things alone, my girl. They're fresh out the cradle out here these days."
Nuria made a dismissive gesture then touched her piercing. "Is this played out?" "The fact that you said 'played out' instead of whatever the fetuses are saying these days should tell you plenty." Sage settled back in her chair to take in the newly open restaurant and bar that had been a suggestion from their friend, Dez.
It was cool enough, though not in the same league as the A-list jazz bar Rémi owned. Wilde's Bar and Grille was a typical Miami rooftop set-up, overlooking Biscayne Bay and the city's glittering lights. The Yelp review Sage read promised half-naked bartenders twerking on the bar while making some of the most lethal cocktails in Miami.
She swept the place with her gaze again. So far, the crowd was subdued, the bartenders' feet firmly on the floor, the lighting dim. Maybe all that raucous fun was supposed to happen later. Although she didn't know when, since Wilde's closed at two in the morning.
"I think I should be insulted," Nuria said, still apparently stuck on the piercing thing.
"I don't know why, babe. We're the same age, you know. I'm too old to be saying shit is 'lit' or whatever, too."
"Oh my God." Nuria rolled her eyes. "Speak for yourself, macha. I have plenty of fire in me yet. Whether they call it lit, happening, or gostoso." She drew out the last word like she was talking about food. Or the last really good porn she saw.
"Gostoso?"
Nuria tipped up a shoulder. "Something this Brazilian chick I hung out with last week was saying."
"Are you sure she was talking about you and not the flan or whatever you were feeding her at the time?" Sage asked.
Nuria was a phenomenal cook, although only her friends and the rare fuck buddy knew it. Despite her new gig as a talent agent, she still found time to make elaborate and criminally tasty dishes she invited her friends over to share.
"Fuck you," Nuria growled around a smile.
"Is that invitation open to everyone at the table?" Rémi, resident beautiful badass, appeared out of nowhere and leaned down to kiss Nuria's cheek.
Rémi's curls gleamed in the dim overhead lights, cut low and highlighting her model-pretty face that was all smiles. Her black-on-black outfit — button-down shirt rolled up at the elbows, jeans, cowboy boots — skimmed her tall and muscular form in a way even Sage envied, although she knew she didn't look half bad in her own black jeans and tight white T.
"As if you'd ever take me up on it." Nuria patted the chair beside her and Rémi took it after exchanging a hug and back slap with Sage.
"Stranger things have gone on around here." Rémi put her motorcycle helmet in the middle of the table and draped her leather jacket over the back of the chair.
"Not that damn strange." Nuria tossed her head and sent her thick mass of curled dreadlocks slithering halfway down her back. They all knew Rémi wouldn't touch her with another dyke's clit.
Rémi was in love and monogamously — ecstatically, ridiculously, enviably — involved with a woman nearly twice her age. A woman who also happened to be Dez's mother. The whole start of that relationship had been a shit ton of trouble, but everybody was past it now. Mostly.
"What's up, Sage?" Rémi settled into her chair. "Out solo tonight? Where's Phil?"
"She's at some kind of lecture thing with her science geek friends."
"Cool." A look flickered over Rémi's face, and she shared a brief glance with Nuria, who hitched up a narrow shoulder in a shrug. "Who's our waitress?"
"I don't know," Sage said the same time Nuria offered, "Her name is Crystal."
Rémi flashed Nuria a look. "Working her already?"
"Not at all, darling. I'm just observant."
Sage had no idea how Nuria had "observed" the girl's name when she wasn't even wearing a name tag, but whatever.
"Here she comes." Sage waved toward the girl who wove through the crowd carrying their drinks on a small round tray.
She had to admit, the young waitress was cute. But there was no way she'd fuck her. Technically, if Sage had started pumping out babies early, she was old enough to be Crystal's mother. Hell, on her last trip to Jamaica, she'd met some women her age who were damn grandmothers.
A shudder of horror jerked her shoulders up to her ears.
This was new for her. Five years ago, she would've thought nothing of sleeping with a girl as young as eighteen. Then again, five years ago, she'd barely been twenty-five, nothing close to the boring thirty-year-old she was now.
Crystal the Waitress gave out the drinks and took Rémi's order, her eager eyes bouncing between Rémi and Nuria, probably wondering which one she could entice into bed or the nearest unoccupied bathroom. The look was obvious to Sage, who'd seen it on countless men and women over the years. It took someone with a strong ego to hang out with all these pretty bitches and not get a complex about her own looks.
Sage was that someone. At an average height of five foot six, her looks were anything but. Square-jawed face, narrow and direct eyes, straight nose, even the gap between her pearly whites. Separately, those features belonged to a runway model, but together they had a different effect.
Sage knew there was something a little off about how she looked. Maybe it was her resting smug-asshole face, or it could have even been her oversized forehead. She could never be pretty, or even handsome. Called "striking" more than anything, she liked to think, like cocaine, she became more addictive with every exposure.
Her body, though, made an immediate and powerful impression. Having skipped the awkward, pimply phase as a kid, her deep brown skin was smooth and flawless, only a shade or three lighter than the black tribal tattoos covering both arms, her back, one thigh, and flowing all the way down to wrap around the top of her foot like abstract fingers. Add to that the fact that she could sing like Tracy Chapman and had a new, but successful, career recording songs for movies and performing at decent-sized venues around town, Sage was basically lesbian catnip.
"Thank you, Crystal." Rémi showed the waitress how grateful she was with a smile and a twenty-dollar bill, a tip nearly twice the cost of the drink.
"Okay, high roller." Nuria teased Rémi with a flutter of her fingers then snagged her martini glass to steal a sip of the hot pink drink. "Hmm. That tastes good. Maybe I should get one."
"It would go well with the pink lips you just flashed me from under your skirt," Rémi said with a grin.
Nuria leaned in, the lips on her face pursed in a kiss and glistening red. "Aw, you noticed."
"Seriously, guys?" Sage was never in the mood when they played around with each other like that. It seemed almost like incest.
"Don't get your panties in a wad, babe," Nuria said. "You can have a look, too." She swiveled in her seat, her thighs already moving apart under the skirt. Sage looked away with a yelp, covering her eyes for good measure.
"I'm just in time for the show, I see."
The last of their group, Dez Nichols, sauntered over. She moved around the table, giving and receiving hugs from most and sharing a kiss with Nuria.
"Hey, baby." Nuria's enticing purr was aimed strictly at Dez.
Her pretty eyes smoldering with playful heat, Dez buried her hand in Nuria's thickly curled dreadlocks while their kiss lingered a little too long to be truly platonic. But that wasn't going anywhere either. Dez had her own woman and didn't entertain any others in her bed these days. Not even ones who looked like Nuria.
A shame. Sage used to love watching Dez and Rémi work over a playmate together. At the peak of their power as The Good Time Twins, they'd been ridiculous to watch. Endlessly greedy and feeding off each other in ways the woman between them always enjoyed. Now though, they lived less eventful lives, both paired off and shackled to the women they'd fallen in love with.
Sage and Phil had their own thing, completely committed to each other but free from the burden of artificial restrictions like monogamy or even wedding rings. They were faithful to each other where it really counted — in their hearts and minds.
She wouldn't say it was better than what her friends had, but even if she didn't say it, it really was better.
Thinking about what she and Phil had led Sage's mind back to their interlude on the living room floor just before she left, the memory of Phil's mouth and hands and the teeth-clenching pleasure that had arched her back off the floor and damn near blew out her vocal cords. Maybe after her lab thing, Phil would come home and they —
"I can see all over your face what you're thinking." Fingers pinched Sage's side and she squawked, flinching away from Nuria.
"What?"
"You were thinking of some disgusting thing you and Phil got up to earlier. I know that look." Nuria giggled. She obviously approved.
"It wasn't anywhere near disgusting," Sage said, helpless to the smile that tugged at her mouth. "And I'm sure you've done a lot more."
"She got you there, love," Rémi said with a grin.
Nuria rolled her eyes. "You two are just so gross. All of you are. So in love and lording it over the rest of us." She looked around the table. "And by that, I mean me." Since she was the only single one there.
"It's not my fault Phil is perfect for me," Sage said.
"Shit, I still can't believe you two have been together for so long." Dez lifted her drink, newly delivered by the young and lovely Crystal, toward Sage. "It's miraculous and strange at the same damn time."
Rémi choked out a laugh.
Sage's relationship with Phil was the single miracle in her life, one that she was so damn thankful for. Even with the growing feeling that something was going on with Phil, she was still happy to be with her woman. Whatever was going on, it probably had nothing to do with them as a couple. Phil had family issues of her own that were coming to a head. Parents on the verge of divorce, even though their constant fighting since she was young often made her wish out loud they would break up and spare everyone the daily trauma.
The Howards' rocky relationship made Sage grateful for her own parents' stability, even though Trevor and Vivian Bennett didn't know her as completely as she wished.
Sometimes, she did wonder if they knew she was gay.
Then she just as quickly dismissed the thought. If her mother knew about her — about her and Phil, there was no way Vivian Bennett would keep her mouth shut about it. Sage would have gotten a phone call within moments and couldn't imagine she'd be so easily welcomed back home.
"The cat and dog fighting you and Phil get into sometimes is a little much, though." Nuria watched Sage with that inscrutable look of hers. "As much as you two fight, I thought you'd have given up on being together years ago."
"But they make up as intensely as they fight." Rémi's mouth twisted. "I've seen it. And believe me, it's not something I want to see ever again. Especially not live and direct from the floor of my office."
A flush of heat moved under Sage's cheeks, and she was very grateful for the darkness of her skin that disguised her blush. More than once, she and Phil had ended up at Rémi's club, Gillespie's, locked in one of their massive fight-and-fuck fests.
Although they'd calmed down in the last year or so, she and Phil had gotten into some nasty shouting matches in unfortunately public places. Usually over somebody one or the other was fucking. But as fast and hot as their tempers burned, their lust for each other burned hotter and easily canceled out whatever anger or resentment each felt. Their make-up sex was epic.
Sometimes, Sage worried they only fought so they could fuck each other with the unrestrained savagery of animals in heat. "We're not that bad," she protested anyway.
Groans echoed around the table.
Nuria rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, honey."
"I can't believe you said that with a straight face." Dez downed half her drink and lifted a hand to get Crystal back over.
"Okay, next topic of conversation," Sage muttered.
Rémi nodded in agreement. "Yes, please."
THEY SPENT ABOUT four hours in the restaurant. Talking shit, eating too much food, catching up on what they'd missed since they last saw each other. Good times.
But like some prick once pointed out, all good things had to end.
Rémi was the first one to call it a night. The restaurant, which had been growing steadily emptier in the last hour, was giving them the side-eye, anyway.
"I gotta get going." Rémi tossed some cash into the middle of the table. "Claudia is meeting me soon."
Across the table from her, Dez didn't even flinch at the mention of her mother. Things had changed a lot in the last couple of years.
"Yeah, the place looks about ready to kick us out anyway," Sage agreed.
They settled the bill and headed on their way.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Insatiable Appetites"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Fiona Zedde.
Excerpted by permission of Fiona Zedde.
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