Gemini Heat by Portia Da Costa Page A

Deana, aren't you? she asked -the illuminations coming to her in droves.
    'Yes,' he said crossly. As if the heat were suddenly too much for him too, he tugged off his baggy white T-shirt, tousling his hair in the process. Somewhere along the line, he'd removed his 'mad professor' glasses, and his eyes seemed ten times as bright without them. Or was it thwarted lust that was doing that? In a relapse into bleary tipsiness, Delia couldn't work out which.
    'This must seem pretty weird to you,' he went on, pausing to swig down more wine. 'I'm telling you that I'm in love with a woman who looks just like you.'
    'Not as weird as you think,' Delia answered. She took another drink of her own wine as an unthinkable idea occurred to her.
    With the slow, simple rationality of the far from sober, she saw an elegant solution to their problems. To her sexual dilemma and Peter's.
    'Do you want to make love to her?' she asked bluntly, as fire built low in her belly. She could see pictures in her head now. Pictures of Deana, her legs wide open, being possessed by the dark, ruthless Jake.
    But no, it wasn't Deana! It was herself. Delia. Her face! Her body! If she closed her eyes she could slip into the scene: live it, make it happen. All she needed was a hard, male penis inside her.
    And what if she could make an illusion for the man who provided that penis?
    Draining her glass yet again, she rose to her feet and walked carefully across the room. Extremely carefully, because it seemed - very slightly - to sway . . . Pulling off her own T-shirt, she dropped down onto the sofa next to Peter, then cupped her bare breasts in her hands, offering them to him as if they were a pair of softly-ripe fruits.
    'Make love to me, Peter,' she said, her voice faint. She flicked her nipples lewdly, to make them stiffen up and grow hard. For him.
    'Delia ... I don't—'
    'It's "Dee",' she corrected him, 'Dee Ferraro. I play games, remember?' The wine made her powerful and she reached for his narrow hand with its square, neatly trimmed nails. He shook, visibly, when she placed it on the slope of her breast.
    'Just for tonight, Pete. Please?' It seemed strangely apt to be pleading. She would've grovelled to de Guile, wouldn't she?
    'But I know the difference,' replied Peter, his voice cracking. He was protesting but his hand was already moulding her flesh. It was clear he was enjoying it.
    'For comfort then ... If you can't pretend.'
    'Oh Dee,' he sighed, moving in on her, even though she'd no idea whether it was for comfort. Maybe it was for fantasy's sake, after all?
    For a moment, she drew back within herself. Calm and centred, she looked at the real man with her, not the sex-fiend who'd hijacked her body this morning.
    Peter wasn't Jake. He wasn't dark, or mysterious, or an insatiable creature of wealth and power. But his smooth, pale body was hard and wiry - and far from unpleasant to her eyes.
    His thin arms were strong as they pulled her to him and crushed her in a tight, shocking grip. Her nipples and his were pressed up against each other. And as his mouth met hers, he moaned into it, shimmying his body as if his small brown teats felt all the pleasure that her larger, rose red ones did.
    His tongue was bold too. Probing and tasting as their wine-scented saliva mingled. It seemed a prelude to a far greater blending, a bolder probing. She sighed and sucked at his mouth.
    'You're so good to me, Dee,' he murmured, then sucked hard on her tongue in return. He savoured the muscular flexible organ as if it were a sweetmeat or a lollipop. A nipple or a clitoris. Delia moaned, her hips lifting and beating against him with a life that was all of their own.
    There was a pressure and a heat down there now, a pulsating, tingling discomfort that wasn't unpleasant at all. The mouth between her legs seemed to whimper and beg and cry out. She was hungry. Hungry for maleness. For flesh. To be filled . . . Perversely, she still knew that Jake de Guile would be perfection