Title: Life Drawing
Series: Chiaroscuro, Book Three
Author: Suzanne Clay
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: December 11, 2017
Heat Level: 5 - Erotica
Pairing: Female/Female
Length: 19000
Genre: Contemporary, artist, lesbian, teacher/student, contemporary, age-gap, interracial, light D/s, leash play, toys
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Synopsis
After two intense encounters with her
former student, Ainsley must admit to herself that she can see a future with
Noma—but at what cost? Years spent protecting herself from heartbreak have left
Ainsley terrified to take a chance on love. Everything—from their age gap to
the judgment of others to a commitment to deeper intimacy—makes a relationship
seem impossible.
When Noma asks Ainsley to go away with
her to a secluded mountain cabin for Noma’s final weekend in town, there’s
nowhere for Ainsley to run. And Noma is asking for harder scenes than either of
them have ever explored before. Such intimate isolation with the only woman
that she’s been drawn to in years, and with nothing but raw chemistry and
honesty between them, could unlock the last of Ainsley’s crumbling defenses
once and for all.
Ainsley and Noma’s relationship comes to
a head in the third and final story of the Chiaroscuro series.
Excerpt
Life Drawing
Suzanne Clay © 2017
All Rights Reserved
The text from Noma came through as
Ainsley was finishing up yoga in her living room. She paused before pushing
into cobra, dragged her phone over instead, and rested her chin on her arms.
Hey can we FaceTime in about an hour?
Ive got some good news and some bad news.
Ainsley frowned as she rolled on her
back and held the phone above her. She considered her answer, thumbs hovering
over the keyboard. “Of course” was what she finally settled on, and then she
promptly pulled up a search engine to find out exactly what FaceTiming was.
I’m almost forty, she thought. I’m not
in contact with my family, and my closest friend is a man who hates cell
phones. I have an excuse for being clueless. But there was no way that a
twenty-two-year-old woman needed to know that, especially if it led to the
extensive teasing Ainsley thought it would.
It wasn’t the first time Ainsley had
felt out of her depth with her young lover. For a week now, she’d been talking
to Noma whenever possible—texting her, calling her, Skyping her—and every time
she spent just five minutes listening to her talk, she had her mind blown.
How quickly this next generation could
pick things up from nothing with only a search engine. How incredibly fast
their minds could move from one topic to the next. How talented they were at
multitasking. And Noma had the fortune of an education she’d fought hard to
receive—MIT was nothing to flinch at—as well as technology advancing so quickly
that the world was only a short time away from hitting a technological
singularity.
And then, here was Ainsley—squinting at
Photoshop like she didn’t need glasses and looking up trivial information
everyone else seemed born with. Incredible.
Refusing to let heavy thoughts weigh her
down, Ainsley came to her feet and folded herself into dancer pose. Twisting
into positions her body had all but forgotten—her hand behind her back and
around her ankle, balancing like a flamingo on her other leg—meant that her
thoughts ran a little more smoothly, as if her stretching muscles made her mind
work differently.
Noma seemed to like her. That much was
apparent. They’d only spent one night and day together so far, but they’d sunk
into each other so perfectly, Ainsley had all but forgotten how bland her
day-to-day life used to be. While Noma had familial commitments to uphold as a
new college graduate, she never let a night go by without sending Ainsley sweet
words that made her feel missed.
New pictures filled Ainsley’s phone
nowadays, and they were pictures she wasn’t sure she had a right to: a bored
Noma snapping a photo of herself in the back of a car, bracketed by her two
young siblings; Noma, shy and half-asleep and smiling up from her silk pillow;
a scandalous mirror picture of her in matching lingerie with a wink. But Noma
wouldn’t have sent them if she didn’t like Ainsley or if she didn’t see some
potential in their relationship. Right?
Ainsley lost her balance and caught
herself on the edge of the coffee table, trying to stop panting. That was
really the weight of it all: they’d played together, they’d had scenes
together, but they still hadn’t talked about what they were looking for with
each other in a serious way. And Ainsley couldn’t figure out if she was wrong
for wanting that.
An hour later, Ainsley tucked herself
against the arm of her couch and waited for Noma’s call. She didn’t have to
wait long. When she answered, alarm bells went off in her head at how her phone
camera decided to show the least attractive angle of herself possible—namely,
giving a peek at her nose hairs.
“Oh my God,” Noma said with a laugh.
“Ainsley, please.”
“Just a moment.” Ainsley tried to adjust
the phone so she could look a little less wrinkly and a little more striking.
Her hand trembled, and when she propped her arm up on her knee she
looked…washed-out, actually, and pale. But it was the best she could do. “Hi.”
Noma, brilliant in her royal-purple tank
top with a slash of matching eyeliner, looked like she’d just come off a photo
shoot somewhere. She grinned. “Hey there, gorgeous.”
“Stop.” Ainsley rolled her eyes, but she
couldn’t keep the smile from her face or the warmth from her cheeks.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Noma
murmured, and when Ainsley looked back at her, she saw how Noma was drinking
her in. Her pupils were huge, her lids were languid, and every part of her
expression felt like something sweet and treasured that Ainsley didn’t deserve.
“Missed you.”
Ainsley beamed. “Did you, sweetheart?”
“More than I wanted to.” Noma sighed.
“Listen, I’m sorry I had to cancel on our little get-together we talked about a
few days back—”
“It’s fine,” Ainsley interrupted. “You
have a lot going on. I completely understand.”
“Yeah, but like, I’m not trying to stay
away from you, if you get what I’m saying.” Noma watched her closely. “There’s
just been a lot of time-sensitive things going on, since my aunts could only be
in town for a week or whatever.”
“And I’m not upset about it at all.”
Ainsley smiled. “You said a lot of your family couldn’t even be at your
graduation ceremony, right? It makes perfect sense that you need to see them
all right now. Especially with how big your family is.”
Noma frowned. “About that, I, uh…”
Ainsley blinked and then adjusted
herself so she could see Noma a little better and try to read her face. “What
is it?”
“That’s the bad news I talked about,”
Noma said, wincing. “I’ve got a pretty full plate this next week too. I won’t
be able to see you till it’s over.”
“Oh.” It had been years since Ainsley
had been strung along, but she remembered the feeling—the tightness of her
chest, the inability to breathe. “Oh, okay.”
“I’m sorry,” Noma said.
“You don’t have anything to apologize
for.” Ainsley forced a smile, but it felt cold compared to the last one.
“You’ll be heading back to Massachusetts soon after that, right? I know how
hard it can be to fit such a huge number of things into a month.” It was easier
to pull out excuses for Noma to pick from than watch her try to make them
herself.
Noma looked away for a moment and
dropped her voice. “Here’s the thing, though. My uncle? You know, the divorced
one I told you about? The doting one?”
“Of course,” Ainsley said. She had a
picture of them together too.
“So, he’s got this cabin in the
mountains, and he wants me and my friends to go up there next weekend so we can
get some time together before I have to go, and I told him yes.”
Ainsley swallowed down her
disappointment. “That sounds like a lot of fun. You’ll have to take lots of
pictures.”
“We’ll have to take lots of pictures.”
Ainsley furrowed her brow. “What?”
“I want you go to with me, Ainsley.”
Noma smiled—that same shy smile she’d given her when she peeked up out of
Ainsley’s bed that first morning. “Nobody else. Just you and me up in the
mountains, enjoying nature and shit.”
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Meet the Author
Suzanne is an asexual woman with a great love for writing erotica and enjoys spending her time confusing people with that fact. She believes there is a need for heightened diversity in erotic fiction and strives to write enough stories so that everyone can see themselves mirrored in a protagonist. She lives with her husband and cat, and, when not writing, Suzanne enjoys reading, playing video games poorly, and refusing to interact outdoors with other human beings.Facebook | Twitter | eMail | Tumblr
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