Varian Krylov (8 page)

“So grown-ups should be able to share their toys too?”

“At least it's a theory.”

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“But that doesn't answer my question. You only talked about a person accepting that their lover loves someone else. Can one person be in love with two, three, four different people at the same time?”

“I say yes. I mean, everyone has their own idea of what it means to be in love, and probably for a lot of people, the root of being in love is loving one other, exclusively.

But . . .”

“What?” Galen's grin was playful, but his eyes were chiseling into her.

“Most people are in love with more than one person during their lifetime. I tend to think that the only reason more people don't find themselves in love with more than one person at a time is because they don't let themselves. Or they don't admit it when it happens.”

Galen just sat there, grinning and studying her.

“Well? What do you think?”

"We can delve into my views on monogamy another time. For now, just trust that I didn't mean to insult you."

"Why ask about David?"

"Just curious about you. Your life."

"We're not together anymore."

Galen looked vaguely shocked.

"What?"

"I don’t know," he said, blatantly reassessing her. "I'd never have guessed you were single."

She gave him her, “what the fuck are you talking about?” eyebrow raise.

69

"It's an intuitive thing. You seemed . . . partnered to me."

She felt a little disappointed that the indignant anger she should be feeling wasn't coming on.

"Well," she conceded, "it's recent. The breakup. Maybe I haven't had time to cultivate my vibe of desperation."

"When?"

"The day I met you." She had no idea why she was answering his questions.

"Did he . . . get scared?" he asked, his tone suddenly soft. Cautious.

"What? About the cancer? He doesn't know. I didn't even tell him I was having the procedure. The lumpectomy."

"So, what happened?"

Yellows and oranges were melting from the buildings and blocks, running down the city streets.

"When I found the lump, even before I really decided I knew what it was, there was a shift. I saw . . . I perceived my life—the things that make up my life—differently.

Things I'd thought were little problems, things I could live with, were suddenly thrown into relief, and I saw how big they were. And other things, that had seemed big, overwhelming, just didn't matter anymore."

"So you left him?"

"I knew that if I told him what was going on, he'd need to stay with me. Take care of me. I couldn't have stood that. I don't love him anymore. So I told him that. Told him I'd stay at a hotel until he finds a place."

"How long were you with him?"

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"Almost two years."

"And you're not going to tell him?"

"No."

The guilt she'd been feeling for days, ever since she'd decided, welled up fast and hard. She suddenly felt anxious. Nauseous. She stared off into the city-melting sunset, willing herself to calm. It was the right thing. It was.

When she turned away from the horizon, back to Galen, he was gazing at her.

Assessing. Pondering. Working her out. And she didn't care. Another thing she'd let go—not wanting people to look inside of her.

* * * *

Galen didn't seem to want her to leave. Every time she made a move to go he gave her a reason to stay. First the coffee. Then he lured her into the hot tub, where she thought he'd surely fuck her again, but where, instead, he gave her the best foot massage she could remember ever getting. Then, apparently, it was necessary that they both have showers, but separately. She was shown to the guest bath, for that. And then, long after it had gone dark, he made dinner. They'd passed hour after hour together, in tense quiet. Except for the coffee klatch, they'd hardly talked.

And through it all she was dying for him to touch her, to kiss her. To fuck her. Not like that afternoon, on the couch. Like that first night. She fixated on parts of him: his mouth as he took a drink of water, his lips pressed to the clear glass, imagining them touching her lips, her neck, her sex; his hands as he kneaded the arches and balls of her feet, remembering the feel of his grip on her wrists, the contrast of the delicate way he'd touched her nipples, her cunt. His smile. Prickles danced between her shoulder 71

blades at the memory of his teasing grin as he'd taunted her, even scared her the other night. Even the sound of his voice shaping mundane phrases—telling her where she'd find clean towels, asking her if she'd like wine with dinner—reminded her of the deep, low growl he made when he felt pleasure, when he was close to climax. By the time they'd finished eating, she was a nervous mass of need. When he asked her to go for a drive with him, she almost came back with, “Jesus, Galen. Aren't you ever going to fuck me?' But, frustrated and wanting as she was, she just said, “Sure.”

When Galen pulled the car alongside the curb in front of Toys in Babeland, and she saw dildos and vibrators arrayed in rows spreading across the expanse of storefront window like some surreal Technicolor mountain range, she felt an unsettling confluence of relief and apprehension trickling into her hot, pulsing veins. She looked over. There was that grin. She was in.

They stepped inside. Galen drew her over to a corner at the front of the store and stood behind her, so they both had a view of the venue and all the toys on offer. Her focus flitted around the room, from display to display, locking onto a swirly glass dildo one moment, a frighteningly enormous red rubbery-looking thing the next, as she tried to take it all in. His hands resting on her shoulders, Galen kissed her neck, then mouthed her earlobe, making all her skin feel tight and tickly, then biting it so hard she almost yelped out loud and her eyes suddenly felt wet and stinging before an incredible cascade of tingles washed down her entire body. It was at that moment she realized he was the best lover she'd had.

"Vanka," he sighed near her ear, his voice and his warm breath prolonging the tingling sensation cloaking her body, "we're going to get you a toy."

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The idea, the feel of his lips brushing faintly against her lobe as he spoke, the feel of his hands sliding over her shoulder and down to her arms, everything had her feeling vaguely drunk. Hot and soft, unsteady.

"But first, I want you to take me around the store and tell me which toys you've used, with who, and how you liked them."

Clearly Mr. Galen Ross had not yet gleaned that she wasn't . . . whatever . . .

whoever would have tall tales to tell about an assortment of objects to be found there.

Or maybe he had. Maybe the point was to make her blush and squirm and stutter as she confessed her innocence, or attempted to cover it up with thinly woven fabrications about a more illustrious sexual history.

"Well, it's going to be a short tour."

"Is it?"

He sounded aroused. Through the center of her body a cord of rousing tension felt like it had just been pulled slowly, taut. Feeling a tad ridiculous, she led him around as she glanced over the various articles until she saw something that looked . . .

intimately familiar. Taking the sample item from the shelf to which it was tethered by a piece of shoplifter-proof nylon cord, she held up for Galen's amusement what was probably the most ordinary item in the entire store: a plain old vibrator of modest size and beige color.

He raised one eyebrow, grinned, and waited for the story. She smiled, blushed for some reason, and narrated her relationship with the doppelganger of the off-white plastic rocket in her hand.

73

"Right. After . . . guy number one, when I was single for a while, I bought a book on masturbating, and orgasms, and . . . inspired by something in that book, I bought a vibrator. I used it off and on for a while. It never had the . . . effect I was going for, and after a while I reverted to my usual M.O."

"Which is what?"

Funny how embarrassing the idea of answering that question seemed. Everyone does it, right? And she'd slept with the guy. But still. . . . She looked around, checking to see if anyone was listening to their conversation. None of the six or seven people in the store seemed to have the least interest in them.

"I just . . . use my hand."

"How?"

"Just . . . over my panties."

"And?"

"I just massage myself. Rub my clit."

"You don't put your fingers inside yourself?"

She'd tried that a few times, but really, it hadn't done much for her.

"No."

"What about the wax job? I thought you said you did that because you liked the feeling of your soft, bare skin when you touched yourself."

"I . . ."

Fuck. She hadn't meant to lie. It was true, about touching herself over her panties. That's how she always started. She looked furtively around. It was just so embarrassing, talking like this, here in public.

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"After a while," she said, lowering her voice even from the whisper she'd been using, "when I'm close, I go under my panties and touch myself."

He put his hand to the back of her head, pulled her close, whispered in her ear,

"dip your finger in, between your lips, into your wet cunt, and slide your finger over your clit, and get yourself off."

Fuck. Damn. Her sex was pounding.

"Yes."

He let her go, playfully tugging a strand of her hair as he withdrew his hand, grinning at her mischievously. Sudden heat touched her cheeks. He was hard.

Deliciously, obviously hard.

"Any of your lovers use it on you?"

"A few times. Yeah."

Her voice probably told him clearly enough that she preferred the real deal to having a tapered hunk of vibrating plastic drilled into her by the guy she was with.

"Ever use it on them?"

"No," she answered softly, unsure what emotion it was making her feel suddenly giddy. Shock? Embarrassment? Arousal? Hell, Eric and Jason hadn't even liked having their nipples touched.

"Well," he purred, "shall we move on?"

"That's it, Mr. Ross. Tour's over."

"Really? You're not just teasing me?"

"Um . . . no."

75

"Well then, this is going to be fun." He roamed the room with his eyes. "So many possibilities."

Slipping around behind her, he combed her hair back from her face with his fingers and gathered it loosely in his hands at the nape of her neck. As he bared her skin, her nerves seemed to tingle in anticipation of the feeling of his lips brushing against her when he spoke next. Or maybe he'd kiss her. Maybe she'd feel the hot wet touch of his tongue. Or the rake and nip of his teeth.

"I wonder what you'd enjoy. Mmmmm?"

His grip on her hair tightened, just enough to startle. Her nipples were taut and tingly, and the her incision tugged and burned.

"And I wonder which you need. And if they're the same. What do you think?"

"I don't know."

* * * *

For the duration of the long drive back to his house, Galen was quiet, aggravating Vanka's anxiety. She wanted to look again at the things he'd bought, but he'd taken the bag from her and locked it in the trunk. What she wanted. What she needed. God, what the fuck was she doing?

She blushed at the memory of him taking her over to one shelf, taking her hand in his, wrapping it around the tip of a toy, pulling her fist down the vertical length of the thing, letting her fingers and palm feel the series of bulbous swellings, each thicker than the next as her grip slid down. “This,” he'd sighed, “is an ass toy." Then he'd asked her if she liked the pink, or the black, and she'd said black. Now she flushed even hotter as she recalled how he'd made her ask one of the clerks to recommend some anal lube.

76

She'd done it, in part because she thought it was ridiculous to be embarrassed by such a task. But now that they were on their way back to his place, the knowledge that there was a black plastic bag in the trunk containing an ass toy and anal lube had her so nervous she was a little queasy. And even though she was clinging to some notion that it would be a strange thrill to let this man she barely knew do something to her with that thing, what she really hoped was that, for tonight, they'd just be using the other toy.

* * * *

"Take off your panties."

Everything—the hours of anticipation she'd endured, the way he was looking at her, and the sweet, rich sound of his voice as he softly spoke had her—had her warm and wanting. But she was still scared. She wanted to say something, lay down some ground rules. But she didn't. Half willing to trust him to take care with her, and half willing to endure whatever he might do, she did as he asked.

"Sit down. On the edge, please."

She lowered herself onto the sofa they'd fucked on a few hours earlier. From behind his back he brought some strappy contraption.

"Ever been tied up?"

Sudden, total panic.

"Galen. You're not going to tie me up."

This was not negotiable.

"No, I'm not. Not tonight, anyway," he added with a grin that should have infuriated her, but which she found adorable. "This is just a harness. Even your abs of steel aren't up to holding the position I have in mind, for the duration of time I have in 77

mind. But . . ." He seemed to be assessing her level of terror. ". . . for tonight, why don't you just put your feet here."

He slid the coffee table toward the couch and patted the edge. Her heart rate slowly dipping out of the red zone she perched her feet on the polished wood. Galen tossed the tangle of straps aside, sat down on the table, lifted her feet, slid in front of her, parted and planted her feet on either side of his thighs while her heart was again racing and surging and she modestly kept her knees pressed tight together.

Galen pressed a kiss to one knee, then the other, looked into her eyes, and smiled. His brown eyes, the color of dark chocolate, were full of warmth, and the dimples framing the corners of his mouth soothed away the last of her uncertainty. Until he spoke.

"Spread your legs, Vanka."

Why should it be so hard? To spread for a man she'd fucked. Who'd gone down on her? Especially considering her exhibitionistic mood a few hours earlier. But it was.