LipstickLeslee Read online

  Lipstick Leslee

  Titania Ladley

  Sequel to Kaydee & the Tramp.

  “Melanie, please. Please help me. I don’t know how to dance and I don’t know how to dress up like a¼a ‘hot chick’.”

  Hearing that heart-wrenching plea from anyone else would normally have hetero-femme Melanie Kirtright rolling her eyes. But Leslee Franks isn’t just anyone. She’s Melanie’s lesbian boss. And anyway, it might be fun transforming the gender-neutral Leslee into a lipstick lesbian for a pub contest—while earning herself a few points at work.

  But Melanie’s decision takes her on an unknown path of discovery. While giving Leslee a makeover into a seductive femme, Melanie undergoes some transformations of her own. Plunged into a level of fiery, kinky, panty-melting passion she didn’t even know existed, Melanie tries not to fall prey to Leslee’s irresistible charms.

  Tries, but fails.

  Miserably.

  A Romantica® gay/lesbian erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Lipstick Leslee

  Titania Ladley

  Chapter One

  Melanie: The Dare

  Patron vehicles from Pussycat’s Island Bar & Grill’s parking lot overflowed into the designated spaces for the closed retail cell phone and apparel shops next door. I circled the strip mall once and rolled my eyes at the overdone Christmas decorations on every window and door. No spots available, so I drove to the far end and swung my Nissan into the vacant section along the sidewalk. Just as well. I didn’t want to waste time worrying some drunk butch lesbian would stumble out, yank open her car door and give my new SUV a door-dink dent.

  It was a nippy early-December night in Louisville, Kentucky, so I kept the motor running, flipped down the visor and did my last-minute chick-check—not that it mattered, given the place probably had no men customers, but one never knew. So I took the cautious route and made sure everything appeared in order.

  I’d put my auburn hair in a haphazard updo. The loose tendrils and long, sideswept bangs framed my face and made my dark-brown eyes pop. I studied the pastel shadow and coal outline I’d drawn around my eyes, the fake lashes I’d glued onto my upper eyelids, the pink-tinged cheekbones and crimson lips.

  “Crap, you look like a hooker.” I slammed the visor closed and shut off the engine. Maybe it was just the soft lighting around the mirror overemphasizing everything?

  Oh well. It didn’t really matter how I looked, not here anyway. I had to get real and quit being so vain—there wouldn’t be any men, so I wouldn’t be here long, and I certainly didn’t care what a bunch of lesbians thought of me. Besides, after finding my widowed stepmother Savanah and my best friend Kaydee in bed together last summer, I’d vowed never to be caught dead or alive within fifty miles of a lesbian bar—or anything to do with gay at all.

  Well, except for Kaydee and Savanah themselves. I’d forgiven them both for what I’d called their betrayal and accepted their relationship. But that didn’t mean I had to be a part of their lifestyle.

  Oh, and I’d also decided to make an exception for my coworker Leslee. She was pretty cool, and even for a tomboyish, stripped-down model of a female, she didn’t seem…well, gay to me. Too much, anyway.

  I winced, knowing that sounded bigoted even though I didn’t mean it that way at all.

  So anyway, I’d been on my way to meet my date Tom at Santana’s Italian Pub downtown and had made a grudging detour toward Pussycat’s when Leslee had called my cell and begged me to stop by for a few minutes. She’d refused to tell me why in this cryptic sort of “help me” way, so my curiosity had gotten the better of me and I’d agreed.

  Great. Now here I was within fifty yards of a lesbian bar, never mind miles.

  Get over it, you phobe. I snickered at my idiotic hypocrisy and took one last look at my iPhone screen to make sure I hadn’t missed any text messages or calls. On a whim I tossed it on the passenger’s seat, knowing I’d only be here for as long as it took to find out what Leslee wanted, then I’d be right back behind the wheel headed for cocktails and dinner with average-looking but likable Tom.

  Why couldn’t I find some smoking-hot hunk to sweep me off my feet?

  Because Will, that a-hole ex of mine, had ruined my trust in men and even, to an extent, any attractions. I knew it was temporary and that I needed time to heal. Which was why I stuck with average-looking, likable Tom for the time being.

  I was safe from heartache with him because he just didn’t trip my switch like Will had all those years ago when he’d swept me off my feet. Yes, he had tripped my switch—hadn’t he?

  Something nagged at me, but I shoved the confusion of it to the back of my mind like always.

  My stomach fluttered as I opened the car door and planted my black, strappy stilettos on the asphalt lot. The bite of winter wind sent a shiver up my bare neck…or maybe it was just my nerves making me tremble?

  “Silly,” I muttered to myself. “Nothing to be nervous about, you twit. It’s just a bar, it’s just a bar, it’s just a¼ Okay, so here we go. Into a lesbian bar for the first time in your damn life.”

  I dragged in a deep, cold breath and held it, blew it out slowly in a white puff of condensation. My heels clicked on slick pavement as I neared the covered entrance with its thatched tropical roof and small valet circle drive. Twin fake palm trees decorated in white strings of holiday lights flanked the tinted glass doors, which were decorated with colorful parrots, Captain Hook and Santa Claus. I snorted. It was kind of an oxymoron to portray a paradise in the middle of winter-drab Louisville. But whatever.

  The booming beat of music grew louder as I approached the door. A darkly handsome man in a tux—no wait, on second glance it appeared to be a butch—smiled and opened the door for me.

  She looked me up and down, licked her lips and said, “Welcome to Pussycat’s Island.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, feeling a bit like my little black cocktail dress and fur coat had just been peeled from my body. My face warmed at the woman’s blatancy as the tempo of club music grew louder and the scent of coconut and cigarette smoke wafted out and teased me.

  I stepped inside, stood near a hostess podium and an easel advertising something about a contest, and scanned the packed room. It was bigger inside than it appeared outside, even with elbow-to-elbow people filling the space. High bamboo pub tables were set around a dance floor while booths in tropical neon vinyl lined the walls and a section of the center space. A stage resembling a sunny island filled the wall to the right just beyond the dance area, and a tall Christmas tree sat in the corner. A busy tiki bar spread the length of the left wall, manned by three bartenders, two in jeans and wife-beater tanks, and one femme with a bleach-blonde ponytail and breasts spilling out of her barely there blouse. The far wall had been painted in a colorful mural of sand and sun…with nothing but women in bikinis sunbathing on the beach. Ha ha, not a man to be found. I could also glimpse an outdoor sand volleyball court through a rear door, of course vacant of patrons due to the cold and forecast snowstorm.

  “How many?” A petite girl in khaki knickers and a Hawaiian shirt with the sleeves cut off gathered up menus from the podium shelf. Her nametag read Billy. She wore dangly candy cane earrings, and her dark hair was shaved short, Mohawked down the center with the tips tinged by raspberry-and-green dye. She had a forearm rainbow tattoo with black wings, and a ring of thorns etched around her opposite biceps. One nostril, the corner of her lower lip, and an eyebrow were pierced with tiny diamond studs. It made me wonder with reluctance what else this young, pretty girl had mutilated on her slim body.

  I clamped my legs together and shivered at the horrible thought of getting pierced there. Kaydee had her pussy hood pierced, but I’d always regarded that as TMI and never h
ad taken a look or even broached the subject with her.

  “Uh, just me. I’m meeting Leslee Franks. Do you know her?”

  The girl smiled. Ironically, she looked more feminine when she didn’t smile. I got the full picture of her butchiness with that toothy grin. “Yep. Of course I do. She’s my boss—well, one of them,” she said with a raspy, boyish tone to her voice.

  I arched my brows. “Your boss?”

  Billy shrugged. “Yeah. She’s co-owner of Pussycat’s with her ex-husband—only he doesn’t hands-on manage the place anymore, or even step foot in here too often. He leaves that to her, does the books and takes care of promo and advertising instead.”

  Leslee owns a gay bar? Has an ex-husband? Ah, amazing how much one can find out about their closest coworker when they take time to step outside the office and into the real world.

  “Hold on. I’ll see if she’s in the back.” Billy held up a finger and sauntered off toward a door in the corner by the tinsel-lined bar.

  I clutched my purse against my abdomen and allowed myself to further explore Leslee’s playground, the place she’d mentioned frequenting many times before. Well yeah. Duh. Of course she came here a lot. She owned the damn place. She owned Pussycat’s? Such a lively place, not such an oxymoron now that I’d left the cold behind and stepped into the tropics.

  Wow. Why didn’t she tell me about this? And why did she work days at Starling Hotel too?

  The music changed to a reggae tune and a crowd of women shrieked their approval and swarmed the dance floor. Bodies of all shapes and sizes gyrated and swayed. Many held up their beer bottles or cocktails and whooped out their approval of the lyrics, which just then chanted over and over, “Hot sex on the beach, yeah mon, lick ’er juicy peach…hot sex on the beach, yeah mon, eat ’er juicy peach…”

  Ooo-kay. Well. I closed my eyes and turned away from the dance floor. I fanned myself with my little flat clutch purse. It sure was hot in this place.

  “Melanie?” I turned to see Leslee walking toward me. She wore jeans and a neon-green polo with the restaurant’s logo on it—two buxom women dressed like pussycats, lounging suggestively on a tropical island. Her dark, shoulder-length hair swung over her shoulders as she neared. For some odd reason, my eyes trekked downward and noticed for the first time that she had large breasts—which jiggled with each step she took—and a womanly curve to her hips.

  Maybe it was the atmosphere, I really didn’t know. But it sure weirded me out that I’d given Leslee a once-over, and especially in a gay bar. Well, it would be the last.

  “Thank you so much for coming.” I caught a quick flash of moisture glittering in her eyes right before Leslee took me in her arms and hugged me as if I were her long-lost sister or some shit.

  But whoa, no sister here. I became aware of those large boobs snuggled to my less ample ones. Her bra must be a thin one because the unmistakable sharpness of taut nipples pressed into mine. I had my arms wrapped around her too—hell, what was I supposed to do, push her away and hurt her feelings?—when a curious tingle washed down my body from my chest to my crotch like a hot waterfall. With my stilettoes on, I was tall enough to match the few inches she normally had on me in height, so our bodies were mirror images of one another size-wise. My abdomen lay flat against hers while my hips and thighs¼and oh my god, our pussies, fit together in a female puzzle of curves interlocked with more curves.

  Leslee’s faint floral scent wafted up and captured my attention. I turned my nose into her soft hair and inhaled, realizing it was her shampoo I smelled. Her body quivered along mine, and at first it made the tingling more tingly.

  Until I realized she was crying.

  I gripped her shoulders, noting the surprising tightness of fit muscles beneath my touch, and drew her behind the podium desk into a small vestibule for more privacy. I pulled her away from me so I could look her in the eyes. And wow, why had I never noticed the brilliant green of them? “What’s wrong, Leslee? What’s happened? Why did you call me here tonight?”

  Fat tears gathered in her eyes and spilled over the rims, trailing down high cheekbones and skin of satin. “Because I-I need you.”

  Every face muscle I had screwed into what I hoped wasn’t an expression that hurt her feelings, but I couldn’t stop the cheek-jerk reaction. Before I could stop myself, I croaked, “You need me?” in a tone that made Leslee flinch.

  “Yes, yes, oh god, yes.” Leslee incessantly nodded and swiped at the tears like an angry child. She turned away, presenting me with her narrow waist and the swell of her ass in snug, low-slung Levi’s.

  And holy crap, I had to admit her ass looked damn good in the jeans. My hands curled into balls as I wondered what the full globes would feel like being lifted by my hands in the throes of some lezbo sex and¼

  What the fuck was wrong with me? In the span of a few minutes, I’d gone from a homophobe to a drooling lesbian. It had to be the atmosphere. It had to be. Otherwise this shit just wouldn’t cut it.

  I spun her around to face me, this time sensing feminine softness along with the fit shoulder muscles. My heart thudded to a halt against my breastbone. Her eyes were big round discs of watery wretchedness within the delicate oval shape of her face. The lashes were spiked by tears and she had faint half-moon circles of exhaustion beneath her eyes.

  Something I couldn’t name snagged my heart like an unsuspecting fish on a hook. Emotion I couldn’t define had me yanking her into my arms and holding her close. “Shh, shh. Baby, it’s going to be all right. I’m here. I’m here to help in any way I can.” I stroked her hair. The strands were a downy caress against my palm and fingertips. “Just tell me what’s up and we’ll get this all handled. Then you’ll be dancing a jig before you know it.”

  That only made her wail louder. Her full breasts abraded over mine with each hiccup and sniffle she took. Her arms went around my waist and she clung to me like a vine to a wall. Our nipples pressed together and my eyes widened at the hot tingling that started there once again and spilled down into my groin.

  What the fuck?

  “That’s exactly what I don’t want to do,” Leslee cried.

  I pulled her away from me and thought how it seemed a lot like trying to peel Saucy, my adorable cat, off me when she’d snuggled up to me on the couch. “What’s exactly what that you don’t want to do?”

  “Dance or jig or whatever.” Her gaze darted to the side then back to latch on to mine. She bit her lip and frowned, as if to decide what to say—what to reveal?—next. She reached up and held my face in her hands. They trembled against my cheeks. “Melanie, please. Please help me. I don’t know how to dance, and I don’t know how to dress up like a¼a ‘hot chick’.”

  “What?”

  A fresh tear tumbled down her cheek. “The contest. My ex set it up—he and I own this place together but he only does the books and the promotions. I just know the asshole did it on purpose just to humiliate me and get back at me for ending our marriage because I came out, never mind the fact that he’d been having affairs like a nympho for years. So he had it announced on a live radio spot just this evening that the co-owner of Pussycat’s would be entering the Dirty Dance-off Contest. He had the announcer go on and on about how ‘butch’ the owner is but how she would be transforming into a femme to bring the masses in to watch the contest. Oh god, Melanie. You’ve got to help me. I don’t know the first damn thing about dirty dancing, or about turning myself into a femme.”

  What a prick this ex must be. “Well, why don’t you just not be in the contest? Screw him and the ad.”

  Melanie lifted her chin. It trembled before she announced, “Because he said if I don’t do it, he’s going to sell his sixty-percent portion of Pussycat’s to Bards Holdings, which is an extremely anti-gay investment company. They buy up gay-owned businesses and turn them into straitlaced ones. Their goal here in this town is to purge it of all that’s gay.”

  Hmm, yes, I’d heard of Bards, but hadn’t paid much attention to their agenda. U
ntil now.

  “Really?” I raked my gaze up and down Leslee’s gender-neutral-clad body and winced. It might be a long shot, but it was worth a try. Besides, I loved a makeover challenge dropped in my lap on a whim, so this was right up my street. “Well, screw that. I’m in. I’ll just call my date and let him know I’ll be a bit late. So let’s get you all dolled up and make a few jaws drop—including that jerk ex of yours.”

  I searched through the vestibule doorway into the bar for a door that led to a bathroom where I could make the transformation. But before I could locate the room of miracles, Leslee said, “Um, Melanie?”

  “Huh?” I flicked my gaze back to her. Worry lines marred her pretty brow.

  “The rules of the contest are that each entrant has to have a partner, you know, to dance with on stage.” She forked her fingers through her hair, glanced up at the ceiling. “Would you¼would you be my partner? Please?”

  Aw, crap. “Uh nooo. I don’t think so. I have a date, and¼”

  The tears welled up in her eyes again. Damn it, she sure knew how to tug at my heart. She nodded. “Yes. Okay. I understand. It—it was wrong of me to ask. I’m sorry I bothered you, Melanie.”

  She started to turn and walk away, but I grabbed her arm and halted her. I held her soft flesh captive within the circle of my palm, although I detected the firmness of triceps and biceps beneath the skin. Why did that intrigue me?

  “Wait,” I said to her.

  Her gaze drifted to somewhere over my shoulder. Her eyes widened. I almost turned to see what had caught her attention, but she started to speak then stopped herself. Indecision warred in her expression and I decided she looked pretty in a natural sort of way—but she really could use some blush and mascara. Hmm. Yes, it would be kind of fun to play dress-up and turn her into something totally different, like me and Kaydee and our other friends used to do to each other at slumber parties. Ha ha. Although getting Kaydee in a dress had always been a lot like trying to talk a boy into putting on high heels and walking out onto the football field.