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  Beauty and the Butch

  Paisley Smith

  The last thing up-and-coming TV producer Lindsey Mitchell expects to find at an ultra-girly beauty pageant is true love. After all, she’s unapologetically butch and that’s unlikely to appeal to the primped-and-powdered Southern belles vying for the title of Miss Georgia National.

  Ella Northington is the perfectly poised contestant who’s hiding a big secret—she’s a lesbian. But Lindsey’s just too tempting to resist and what’s supposed to be a one-night stand quickly turns into something more. The lovers are determined to touch and taste every inch of each other.

  But the stakes are high and competition is fierce. And if Ella is outed, she risks losing everything she holds dear, including her sexy butch lover.

  A Romantica® lesbian erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Beauty and the Butch

  Paisley Smith

  Chapter One

  Lindsey Mitchell hefted the heavy camera onto her shoulder as she and assistant producer Maurice Vega strode into the hotel where the Miss Georgia National beauty pageant was being held.

  “We’re late,” Lindsey said, bursting through the side door to enter the event center.

  Laboring for breath, Maurice waddled quickly behind her, dragging a hand truck loaded with booms and microphones in his wake. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but his hands were so full he couldn’t have mopped his brow if he’d wanted to. His layered tees and plaid flannel overshirt barely reached the top of well-worn jeans that looked as if they might give up the fight and plummet to his ankles any minute.

  Lindsey shook her head. “Why’d you wear all those shirts?” She held the door as he twisted sideways to slide through. “You look like Ignatius J. Reilly.”

  Maurice’s size indicated he’d seriously missed an opportunity to be a linebacker for a pro football team, but Lindsey knew his temperament tended toward the opposite end of the spectrum. Maurice was a big teddy bear who enjoyed heated games of Dungeons & Dragons and reading superhero comic books rather than hard hits in a sports arena or God forbid, spring training exercises.

  He stopped briefly and heaved several great breaths. “I think I have a couple of Big Chief tablets in the car,” he said, referencing Ignatius, the hero of A Confederacy of Dunces, which they both regularly quoted. “But you’re hardly my Myrna Minkoff.”

  Lindsey chuckled and raked her fingers through her spiky black hair. Once Maurice had wedged through the door, she let it go and they walked down the hallway toward the information desk.

  Black and silver festoons draped over a backdrop of glitter-frosted pink decorated the walls and the tables. “Wow, they really went all-out for this shindig, didn’t they?” She leaned closer to Maurice. “I wonder where they keep the Barbie Corvette.”

  Maurice’s eyes twinkled behind his black-rimmed glasses. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t mind going for a ride in it.”

  Lindsey scoffed. “Don’t let their big smiles fool you. There’s nothing between the ears of those women.”

  “I don’t care what’s between their ears. And don’t underestimate the power of the Vega.” He waved his hand over and around his camera with the flare of a game show model. “We’ve got a built-in aphrodisiac.”

  An entourage flocked around one contestant, making last-minute adjustments to her frothy white gown. Lindsey’s gaze flicked back to Maurice. “Yes, and the thought of getting on TV is the only way we could get any of these gals to pay attention to either of us.”

  Maurice chortled. “You can’t honestly tell me you wouldn’t sample these Georgia peaches if given half a chance.”

  Lindsey sneered. “Not my type.”

  “The kind that’s got legs and a head is my type,” Maurice said, craning to watch a brunette beauty in a royal-blue dress float by. He turned back and waggled his black eyebrows at Lindsey. “Not even that one?”

  Lindsey looked back at the ultra-feminine pageant queen. “Girls like that don’t notice girls like me. They’re looking for MRS degrees, minivans, picket fences and two point five kids.”

  “They pay plenty of attention to me,” Maurice joked. “In my shower.”

  “Eww!” Lindsey said and punched his arm playfully. “I don’t need to know about your solitary pursuits.”

  “Seriously, though,” he said. “I’ve known you going on six months and I don’t know what your type is yet.”

  Lindsey shrugged. “Somebody with a little—strike that, a lot—more substance than a girl who’d parade around on a stage in a bikini and stilettos.”

  A woman shot up from the information table, skirted it and started toward them. “You must be from The Learning Network.”

  Lindsey grasped the obvious former beauty queen’s hand and shook it vigorously. “Lindsey Mitchell. This is Maurice Vega.”

  The woman flashed a well-honed wide and brilliant smile. “I’m Elizabeth Huntingdon, the Miss Georgia National pageant director. I understand you’ll be filming this week.”

  Lindsey nodded. “Yes.”

  “I have the names of the three contestants the network asked us to choose for you to follow,” Elizabeth said and reached for an envelope on the table where stylish women continued to line up for registration.

  Lindsey avoided looking at them. In this sea of leggy women, she felt even shorter than her average height and dumpy in a pair of faded jeans and green Converse tennis shoes. Although she’d never much aspired to having long, luxurious locks and a blindingly bright smile, she recognized what most people considered beautiful. She’d never admit it to Maurice because he’d tease her to no end, but yeah —these women were fucking gorgeous.

  Long legs that stretched for miles. Soft hair that smelled like perfume. Blossoming cleavage and bodies with curves so rife with femininity they made Lindsey’s mouth water.

  She knew better than to shop where the price was too high.

  Throughout high school, she’d always been a tomboy with short hair and no-fuss clothes, the kind of girl dodge ball fanatics foamed at the mouth to get on their team. Nobody had really questioned her sexuality until her best friend Reagan had made the cheerleading squad and then gotten teased for being too chummy with the school dyke.

  That teasing had caused Reagan to find new friends, to stop spending the night at Lindsey’s house—to stop sharing kisses under the sheets.

  No doubt Reagan chalked up their innocent encounters to practicing for boys. For Lindsey, however, those kisses and clandestine touches meant far more. It wasn’t until college that she had her first real relationship with a girl, but it wasn’t for want of wishing. Reagan had broken her heart and in the process Lindsey had lost her best friend.

  Gorgeous girls aside, a job was a job and Lindsey was over her high school angst. Even if surrounding herself by so much estrogen dragged old memories to the surface, she still felt nothing but gratitude for her position at TLN. Besides, producing this reality show would serve as a rung on her ladder to bigger and better—and far more serious—production jobs.

  Nigel Simmons, her boss at TLN, had dangled a carrot for her though. If she was able to draw something thought-provoking or shocking from one of these reality programs, he’d promised to set up an interview with the executive producer of Global Now, a prestigious news show recently launched to rival 60 Minutes.

  A blonde with her hair done up in Velcro rollers sailed past wearing a pink warm-up suit with “Team Tiffany” emblazoned across her ass.

  Discovering something of substance at this hare-brained event would be akin to finding a diamond in a goat’s ass.

  Lindsey put her camera down and opened the envelope. As if to punctuate the names, Ms. Huntingdon gave the backstory on each girl. “Chelsea Walters is a socialite from
here in Atlanta. Her father has something to do with the baseball team. Long story short, she’s a talented singer and the strongest contender for the title. Ella Northington is a pageant veteran and daughter of a congressman. She majored in early childhood education and is an alumna of the University of Georgia. Her talent is baton.”

  Lindsey resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Baton twirlers and spoiled-rotten socialites. Sheesh.

  “Marquita Adams is an all-around beauty who’s also from Atlanta. She’s on an academic scholarship at Emory, is studying to be a surgeon and is also a talented opera singer.”

  “How does she find time to do one of those things, much less all of them?” Lindsey muttered.

  One of Elizabeth’s waxed-to-perfection eyebrows arched. “Oh, many of our girls have their fingers in lots of pies.”

  Lindsey bit the inside of her cheek to keep from snickering when Maurice cleared his throat.

  “Have these three registered yet?” Lindsey asked.

  “Marquita has. But the other two haven’t come through yet,” Elizabeth said. “I was told you’d need a room for interviews. I can show you where it is so you can get set up and get started.”

  “Perfect,” Lindsey said.

  They gathered their equipment and followed Elizabeth back the way they’d come, sprinting to keep pace with the astonishingly fast high-heeled director.

  Lindsey exchanged amazed looks with Maurice who breathed extra-heavily as he loped along behind.

  Their room turned out to be a smaller conference room with chairs stacked along one wall and tables folded up and stashed against another.

  With one hand on her hip and the other gesturing toward the expanse of the room, Elizabeth struck a pose. “Will this do?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Lindsey deposited her camera on the floor so she could drag over a couple of chairs before Maurice suffered a coronary.

  His bag hit the floor with a thud and he righted the hand truck, finally free to dry the perspiration from his forehead with the tail of one of his t-shirts. Lindsey purposefully looked away from the flash of hairy white man belly. Sights like those made her glad she’d been born a lesbian.

  “I’ll send the girls in as they arrive if that’s okay,” Elizabeth said. “Are there…more of you?” The waver in her voice betrayed her distress at their ragtag outfits.

  People always expected producers and film crews to possess more flash and well, a lot larger production crew.

  Maurice looked as if he ran a comic book store and Lindsey knew she didn’t fit the appearance of a cable network producer. Her spiky hair, multi-pierced ears, pierced eyebrow and tat-smothered arms seemed more appropriate in a biker bar than a ritzy convention hotel.

  “Nope. Just Maurice and me. The real glamour goes on in the editing room,” Lindsey joked, thinking of Joe Nakamura sitting in his self-described editing lair, wearing his trademark thick horn-rimmed glasses and flannel pajama pants.

  Maurice chuckled. “Tojo.”

  “Well,” Elizabeth said and clapped her hands together. “If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “Thanks,” Lindsey said as she began unpacking the cases stacked on the hand truck.

  As soon as Elizabeth disappeared, Lindsey looked at Maurice and shook her head. “How’d we get this assignment?”

  He shrugged. “It was either this or the one about millionaire kids’ birthday parties. Frankly I’d much rather look at women in bikinis than a bunch of bitchy soccer moms.”

  Lindsey unfolded a tripod. “I’d rather be producing an educational documentary.”

  “Then take a pay cut to go work for public TV.”

  “Don’t remind me,” she said and mounted the camera onto the tripod.

  Maurice set up the green-screen backdrop and positioned a chair while Lindsey got the camera in place. No sooner had they finished than the door opened and a blonde peeped in at them. “Oh, good. This looks like the right place,” she said as she came in. “I’m Ella.”

  Lindsey forced herself not stare at the girlie beauty dressed to perfection in a light-pink suit and nude pumps. The skirt hit the pageant contestant right above the knees, but there was still ample bare calf showing. The fit of the suit accentuated Ella’s curves beautifully, delineating the taut roundness of her bottom, her tiny waist, and the lush breasts that held Lindsey’s gaze captive.

  “You must be Lindsey,” Ella said and smiled. She extended her hand.

  Lindsey swallowed thickly, hating that the mere sight of this woman caused butterflies to riot in her stomach. Lindsey inhaled. It was a mistake. The most subtle, most feminine fragrance made her want to step closer, to nuzzle her nose in the curve of the woman’s slender neck and breathe her in.

  Lindsey wiped her suddenly damp palm on the backside of her jeans before she pressed her hand into Ella’s. Ella didn’t possess the cold-fish, germaphobic handshake Elizabeth had. No. Ella’s touch was friendly. Genuine. Accepting.

  So were her eyes. Lindsey could get lost in a pair of baby blues like that.

  She cleared her throat. Because her own sexuality was so glaringly apparent, it was rare to come across someone who didn’t shy away in some form or another. Not that most people tended to be bigots. They just didn’t react as normally as Ella.

  “Lindsey Mitchell,” she introduced and withdrew her hand. “That’s Maurice.”

  Maurice nodded politely.

  “He’s shy,” Lindsey joked. “If you want to take a seat right there, we’ll go ahead and get started.”

  Ella nodded and gracefully sank into the chair. She turned slightly to the side, crossed her legs at the ankles and sat ramrod-straight with her hands folded neatly in her lap. Every move she made revealed her training as a beauty pageant contestant. Most women would have fiddled with their hair, looked in a mirror to check their reflection, or at the very least been concerned with their appearance in some way.

  Not Ella.

  But then again, there wasn’t a blonde hair out of place. No feather of misapplied lipstick, not even the tiniest mascara clump.

  Lindsey didn’t know whether to find the woman’s confidence admirable or irritating.

  She switched on the camera and looked through the eyepiece. Gorgeous. Her thighs warmed as she panned back just enough to capture as much of Ella as possible.

  “I’m going to ask you a few questions. My part will be edited out and you’ll be left talking when the show airs. Try to answer as fully as you can and in complete sentences,” Lindsey explained. Was it getting hot in here? She rubbed the short hairs at the back of her neck then reached around front to pluck the suddenly stifling fabric of her vintage Keep On Truckin’ tee off her chest.

  Ella smoothed the hem of her skirt over the tops of her thighs, drawing Lindsey’s attention to the tiny triangle that descended into shadow between the contestant’s knees.

  “You look ama…just fine. You look fine.” Lindsey fished in her back pocket and withdrew a list of questions she’d scribbled. Typical stuff. But she still wanted it in front of her. For some reason, she was having a hard time concentrating.

  Even more irritating than her inability to focus was the fact Maurice had taken notice. He eyed her conspiratorially as he came forward with the clip-on mic. “Would you like to do this?” he asked. His lips quivered as he battled a grin.

  Without words, Lindsey snatched the mic from him and stepped over the tangle of wires. “Can you…uh…unbutton your…your jacket so I can clip this inside?”

  Blue eyes laced with thick brown-velvet lashes gazed up at her. “Sure.”

  Lindsey focused on Ella’s short, naturally manicured nails as she slowly unbuttoned the three buttons of her pink jacket to reveal an almost see-through silky shell underneath. Most of these girls sported those nasty dragon lady tips that made Lindsey cringe at the thought of being fingered by one of them.

  But these nails…

  A momentary fantasy of Ella’s index finger finding its way inside her p
ussy caused Lindsey’s channel to clench around its own emptiness.

  To add to her distress, more of that delectable fragrance wafted up as she reached inside to clip the mic onto Ella’s collar where it wouldn’t show. Lindsey cursed under her breath as she adjusted and readjusted the clip.

  It wasn’t so much the proximity of her hands to the soft curves of Ella’s breasts but the fact that Ella’s gaze still lingered on her face, making Lindsey feel as if the camera had been turned on her instead of the other way around.

  Lindsey prided herself on being no-fuss, but right now she wished she’d put on some lip balm before she’d come into the hotel. She wanted to melt into the garish crimson-carpeted floor.

  Get ahold of yourself! She breathed in through her mouth and released the breath through her nostrils. She was being silly. None of this mattered. This Barbie doll wasn’t interested in her. And even if she were, Ella wasn’t Lindsey’s type. Well…

  Once the mic had been clipped on, Lindsey moved behind Ella, reaching under her arm and jacket to clip the transmitter onto the waistband of Ella’s skirt. Her skin was warm through the silk blouse and Lindsey resisted the desire to let her fingers linger.

  “Say a few words for me so I can check the sound,” she said, reluctantly moving back behind the camera.

  “I’m not sure what to say,” Ella said.

  From the reading, Lindsey determined the mic needed to be just a little closer. Standing so that her legs were only a fraction of an inch away from Ella’s, she unclipped it and moved it higher on the delicate pink collar. “Try that.”

  “I’m still at a loss for words,” Ella said and smiled. “To be honest, I’m nervous about being on camera.”

  “Pretend it’s not there. Talk like it’s just you and me.” Lindsey didn’t intend to imply underlying intimacy, but there it was like a big old elephant in the room.

  Ella’s gaze met hers and Lindsey looked into the camera to avoid those pretty blue eyes, lest they see too much.

  “State your name,” Lindsey said as Maurice moved the silver reflectors into place.