Varian Krylov (39 page)

Khalid. Still under him, still wrapped around him, close-clinging limbs, the hot tight clutch of his body still pulling at him. Khalid's luminous eyes. Watchful. Fearful.

Scared Galen was about to hurt him. He always had, after. Warmth, regret, shame, utter adoration washed out all Galen's fear.

“It's all right,” he sighed to Khalid, kissing his face, stroking his hair. “It's all right.”

Khalid nodded. But he was still stiff, his eyes wide. Alert. Apprehensive.

But when Galen kissed, Khalid softened. Kissed back. Warm and seeking. And after, when Galen smiled down at him, Khalid's full lips curved and his golden eyes lit up. Joy. God, it made him look young. Like an exuberant boy. But it looked delicate.

Ephemeral. Just floating across Khalid's features, threatening to fade, to reveal that eternally stoic visage.

“Don't worry, Khalid. I'm with you. I'm yours. If you want me.”

“If?”

“Like this, I mean.”

“Galen. I have wanted you like this for so long, and it has seemed so far away, really I do not know how to believe it.”

“You can believe it, Khalid. I promise.”

371

“Tell me again. Now. Now that you've quenched tonight's need.”

A surge of warm affection welled up in him. And laughter. Quenched? He already wanted Khalid again, and he was still inside of him. He smiled.

“I love you, Khalid. I've loved you all this time. I just . . . couldn't tell you.”

There was that joy again, back in his eyes, back in the curve of his mouth.

“Does it make you happy?” Galen already regretted the words as he said them.

Khalid's smile faded and the light in his eyes dimmed. But he stroked Galen's cheek and said softly, “All this time, have I been wrong about the thing that has scared you?”

Galen didn't answer. He couldn't. He couldn't speak.

“You remember the time, Galen, when you came back to me, in Paris, after I had told you to go, to leave me alone?”

Galen cleared his throat. “Yes.”

“I was very afraid, that day, to let you in. Back into my life. But I saw that you wanted something that was . . . beyond you, then. And I decided that day to trust you, that one day you would learn to be happy with yourself. With us. That one day, we would be happy.

“You and I, we build our barricades. Comme les miserables. But we belong together, Galen. Each of us, we are only waiting for the other to tear down these wretched little defenses.”

Looking up at him, not smiling, but so open, utterly undefended, Khalid moved, rocking his pelvis under Galen's hips, the hot grip of his body tugging at Galen's hardening cock, making him gasp and shudder.

372

* * * *

“You've been keeping a secret.”

“Have I?”

Galen turned to the next storyboard in the binder. “You're an artist.”

Vanka tapped out the end of her thought on her laptop keyboard, then glanced down at the sketch Galen was looking at—so vague an impression as to be almost abstract.

“I thought you went to film school, not art school.”

“Yeah,” Vanka laughed, “one of my instructors at USC used to tease me that if I wanted a passing grade for my storyboards, I should change programs.”

“Has Khalid seen?”

“They're the reason he agreed to do the project.”

Vanka fought the urge to pull her hand away. Galen's pinky had brushed against hers, and now, with just that tiny contact between them, he was touching her. Stirring her. He knew better, but it was hard to be mad; lately, since things had changed with him and Khalid, Galen radiated a sweet joy that made her smile every time she looked at him.

Now he was tracing between her fingers, his light touch just at the edge of perception. When he turned her wrist, exposed her palm, drew a fine web of pleasure there, warmth pooled in her belly, heavy and sweet. All week she'd been staving off her want, determined to let Galen and Khalid have a little time alone to nurture the new intimacy between them.

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Under Galen's gaze Vanka blushed, then smiled, half in embarrassment and half in amusement that she still felt so vulnerable to Galen's seeking, reading eyes.

His lips touched her palm and her breath hitched. When his warm kiss brushed her cheek, just by her ear, a ripple disturbed that heavy heat in her belly. She pulled away and tried to muster a scolding look.

“Vanka.”

What could she do against a smile like that? Against that tender look of his?

“Vanka, I'm not forgetting my promise. I'm not trying to start anything.”

This time when he lifted her hand to his lips he pressed a warm, lingering kiss into the center of her palm.

“But I need to touch you. Be close to you.”

Again he was kissing her face, his soft warm mouth brushing over her cheek, touching down on her forehead, teasing along her hairline, her ear. Galen pulled her into his arms, held her against him, kissed into her hair.

“Trust me?” he breathed.

She tried to make her taut body soft, to nestle into the warmth of his arms, against his broad, firm chest. As he stroked her bare skin, feathering his fingertips down the back of her neck, the back of her arm, it was a struggle to stay still. It was too much.

Too much.

But just as she was about to give in to her need to wiggle out of his embrace, to fight her way out of his heat, into the calming cool of the evening breezing in from the deck, he let her go.

374

For some reason, it was hard to move. Hard to speak. And there was Galen, looking into her. Like he knew her every thought.

Yes, fine. She wanted him. Needed him. Missed him, them, so desperately she was afraid she'd start crying.

“Get the restraints, Galen. And your blindfold.”

He smiled. And when she brushed her palm over his crotch she felt his erection stirring under his jeans. She took her hand away, and waited. But he didn't go. She cocked an eyebrow.

“Vanka,” he said, his soft voice seeming to send a tremor through the floor under her feet, shaking her, “the thought of you tying me down, blindfolding me, fucking me, you know I want it. But I couldn't, tonight. Tonight, I'm too desperate to hold you, to see you. To watch how your lip quivers when I make you come, to see how you look at me when we're making love.”

“Galen—”

“It's all right. I'm not asking anything from you,” he said, and touched her arm, just for a second. “And I'm not saying I don't want that—the restraints—anymore. It's just tonight, it wouldn't feel right. It would feel dishonest.”

“Galen.”

He was waiting for what she'd say. Her heart was pounding her chest so hard she was scared to take a breath. And then she was afraid to speak, scared of how her voice would come out.

“Just,” she tried, swallowed past the choking roughness in her throat. Tried again. “Just give me a few minutes,” she managed. “Ten minutes. OK?”

375

Galen was just looking at her, not saying anything, and she felt like she was sinking, soft and weak. But then he said, “All right,” in his soft voice, his expression like he was afraid to believe her.

* * * *

When he went to her, he found her naked. Standing there, everything bare to him except her face, turned away toward the window, and her chest, shielded under her crossed arms. God, he was dying to feel her, in his arms, the length of her naked body against him. To feel her breaths swell her chest, pressed to his. To feel her holding him, her arms tight around him, her hands pulling him to her.

But she might not. He was ready for that, too.

When he moved closer, she stayed still, still staring out the window. Like a Greek statue. Her frame, her flesh a perfect composition of planes and curves, all smooth and pale as alabaster.

When he touched her shoulder with his lips it seemed like she shuddered. And then, finally, she looked at him. Her lips curved in a fragile smile, her eyes wet and bright.

“I meant to be so brave,” she said with a broken little laugh. “I was going to be standing here, all brazen and naked. But I can't. Galen. Please.”

The sob in her voice, the pleading look in her eyes tore at his chest.

“You're safe, Vanka.”

Careful of how he was touching her, so she'd know it was just comfort, he stroked her arm, kissed her crown.

“We'll wait. Another time, soon, you'll be ready.”

376

She breathed out a “no” that pulled him under, sank him down, down. He couldn't breathe.

“No. Please.”

Her pleading eyes. A smile quivered on her lips.

“I'm ready. Now. Just. I need you to help me a little.”

* * * *

She'd felt so bold. Like when she'd initiated all the sessions with the restraints and the blindfold. But all her strength had ebbed away the moment she'd heard Galen approaching. She'd crossed her arms over her chest on instinct, and her will was useless to pry them away. She needed him to do it.

His smile soothed, softened her. “All right,” Galen breathed.

Galen was still stroking her arm, touching in a languid rhythm, lulling her.

Breathing warm little kisses into her hair. Then his lips were brushing over her skin, feathering along her hairline, touching across an eyebrow, along her cheek.

“I love you, Vanka,” he whispered between little kisses by her ear, along her jaw.

Then he touched his lips to hers. Slow and soft, more a question than a kiss.

Under the shield of her two crossed clutching arms her heart was hammering, her lungs working fast and shallow. And a liquid heat swirled low in her belly, her want pulsing insistently between her thighs.

Vanka went after that hinted-at kiss, parting her lips for it. When Galen's arms wound around her, she sank against him, his body's heat and strength comforting.

Provoking.

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Finally, long after she'd melted—all warm, all soft, except for her shielding arms—he kissed her deep, but so gently it did more to spur her want than to sate it.

Please. She wanted. She did, even if she didn't know, anymore, how to open herself to him. She stretched and flexed for his deeper kiss, capturing his mouth with hers until they were both shaking and panting.

Then Galen stopped their kiss. Vanka raised her eyes to meet his, leaving herself bare as he looked into her. What did he see in her? Her want? Only her fear?

“Galen?”

He waited, a tender smile bending his mouth.

“A long time ago, you told me you weren't afraid.”

Galen was quiet.

“Are you afraid now?” she finally managed to ask.

“No.” He said it softly, so easily that she believed him, utterly.

And then he guided her back a few steps, and coaxed her down onto the bed.

Ashamed of herself, her will defeated by her fear, she kept her arms crossed tight over her chest as she laid back. As he stripped off his shorts she felt guilty, checking to see if he was hard, her gut unclenching when she verified his eager erection. She'd coached herself endlessly on this point: it was a stressful situation. He'd be burdened with a dozen anxieties, trying to handle each moment just right—hardly conducive to cultivating, much less maintaining a hard-on. But she knew, she'd have been hurt—

however irrationally—if he'd been soft.

But, of course, he hadn't seen yet.

378

Galen came to her, pressing his body along hers. His dark eyes bright as he gazed at her, looked into her. They kissed, soft and slow, long and deep, his fingers weaving into her hair, feathering over her face.

And then he stopped. Gave her a tender smile. Kissed one of her knuckles, where her hand was clutching her shoulder, keeping her shield in place. Holding her gaze with his, then, he touched her clutching hand with the tip of his finger.

Panic flooded her veins. The muscles in her arms seized. He wasn't strong enough. Nothing, nothing could tear that shield down.

She wanted to sob. To scream. It would be there forever, and she'd never feel the press of his body against hers, his strong arms holding her to him as they kissed, as they looked at each other, as they made love.

But it was like he'd worked some kind of spell. He looked into her, held her close and safe in his gaze, and when his fingertip pressed down, just lightly, her grip softened.

And as he drew his touch down, her hand, her arm went along with him. And when he touched his fingertip to her other hand where it was locked against her ribs, her arm slipped away, leaving her hurt chest undefended.

There. There was the look of hurt. Sadness. Galen's dark eyes filled with tears as he let her out of his cradling gaze to look down at her mangled chest.

The muscles of her arms twitched, trying to make the shield again as Galen sank slowly down and pressed a gentle kiss to the edge of a scar where it started, just below her left armpit, the wound that marked the absence of her left breast. But he stilled her arms with a caress of his fingers, and kissed again.

She worked at letting him. This was part of it. Letting him look. Letting him touch.

379

Taking his time, he kissed along the entire length of that gash angling across half her chest, pressing his lips to every inch of the ridge of fading pink. Her sundered nerves felt the pressure of that touch, but only at the fringe of the scar and beyond did she feel the moist heat of his breath, the warm brush of his lips. She bit back a sob, remembering the pleasure of his mouth on her nipples, how his kisses there had set off sparks of need in her sex. Remembering once more she'd never feel that again.

His lips touched down and lingered over every millimeter of every scar—the two long seams where her breasts had been, the smaller scars where they'd biopsied lymph nodes, the fresher wound, still bright and ridged, where they'd recently removed her chemo port—carefully learning this one part of her body that was new to him. When he looked up, looked into her, she didn't see the hurt in his eyes anymore.

He kissed her. First, just a tentative touch of lips, then a deep kiss that started gentle, careful, but got more and more urgent. As they kissed, Galen's fingers were tracing over the paths his kisses had mapped out, wandering up and out, along the length of her arm, then in again, feathering over her wounds, then down, teasing across her belly, or up, tickling her throat, her neck, her earlobes. Every pass of his touch roused a path of nerves that centered at her wounded chest, drawing lines of pleasure that pulled her broken body back together, everything leading back to her core, the place she felt swell up whenever he looked into her, branded now with the marks of what she'd done so she could live.