Vanilla. Megan Hart

spine that I kept hidden. Tightened my nipples, though, and I couldn’t hide that. I ought to have worn a bra.

      He made a small noise as though he meant to speak, and without looking up at him, I flicked a hand. “At my feet.”

      He didn’t move at first. He made another low noise, this time more like a groan. I kept my eyes on my book, though the words were swimming. My breath came a little faster as I waited for him to obey me. I didn’t really doubt that he would—but that was always the delicious bit, the anticipation. When he could refuse me, but would not.

      After a few seconds, Esteban folded himself onto his knees in front of me. Many times I’d had him assume that position, usually with his arms crossed at the wrist behind him, but today I could see from the corner of my eye that he’d settled his hands on his thighs. He bent his head, shoulders rising and falling with a deep sigh.

      We sat like that for a long time.

      I turned the pages of my book, though later I would not remember a single word I’d looked at. I was too aware of the soft huff of his breathing and the heat of him against my bare foot, so close but not touching him. My hands began to tremble, and at last, I put the book aside and looked at him. I didn’t say anything. I simply gestured.

      Esteban leaned, his arms going around my hips. He pressed his face to my belly. He started to say something.

      “Hush,” I said, and he quieted. My hand stroked over his hair. Then again. I found the back of his neck, the strong muscles there, and let my hand rest against his bare skin. He heaved another sigh and settled against me.

      We sat in more silence, more content this time. Every so often he would nudge against me as I petted his hair. The motion of it became hypnotic, and after a bit, we both fell asleep.

      I woke with a start to find him gone from me. The foot tucked beneath me had fallen asleep, too, pins and needles making me wince. The toilet flushed, and a moment later Esteban came out of the bathroom. When he saw me rubbing at my foot, he came to me at once to again kneel and take it in his hands. His strong fingers worked my bare toes, helping the blood flow until I was wriggling not because of the sting, but from his tickling.

      “Stop,” I said with a gasping laugh. “Enough!”

      He pressed my bare sole to his lips and kissed it then set it down gently. He pushed up on his knees to take my hands, and I let him. He looked into my eyes. “Thank you for coming to see me. I was sure you would not.”

      I could’ve kept playing at being stern and cruel, but it’s more exhausting to fake emotion sometimes than to simply feel it. I tugged his hands until he leaned close enough to me that I could hug him. I kissed his cheek and then pressed mine to his for a few seconds, feeling his breath on me.

      “I thought I would never see you again,” he said into my ear. “And I could not do it.”

      I didn’t ask him why he’d felt he had to. He would’ve answered me with honesty, and I simply did not want to hear it. Instead, I squeezed him and sat back.

      “No more about it,” I told him.

      Esteban’s expression turned a little sly. “You will punish me for disappointing you?”

      I blinked for a second before sitting back harder, letting go of his hands. Disappointment was not what I’d felt. Rejection, yes. Surprise. And now, thinking that perhaps he’d done all of this for the sake of getting a spanking or something stupid like that, angry.

      I pushed him away and stepped around him. I grabbed my book. By the time I turned around, Esteban was on his feet and blocking my way to the door.

      He took me by the upper arms. “Wait. I’m sorry. I said something wrong.”

      “Did you do this on purpose? Break it off so I would be angry with you? So I’d punish you?” I tried to yank myself out of his grasp, but I’d forgotten that although Esteban had willingly allowed me all this time to be in charge, he was still physically stronger than I was.

      He held me tight enough to hurt, though I knew he didn’t mean to. I didn’t struggle. I gave him a hard look, but he surprised me again. His grip softened, but he didn’t let go.

      “Querida,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. I was doing what I felt I had to do, until I realized I couldn’t do it.”

      I’d deliberately kept my gaze from him earlier as a way to punish him, but now I found I could not look at his face. This wasn’t love, but it was all we had. “We agreed. Either of us could end this at any time.”

      “But I hurt you in the way I did it, and I’m sorry.” He pulled me closer, step by reluctant step, until we were embracing.

      No man that I’d ever been with had apologized to me that way, and there’d been one who’d hurt me a lot worse than Esteban had. Repeatedly, and on purpose. I breathed in the soap-and-water scent of him as I tried to think of how to answer. Finally, there was really only one answer. I pulled away to look at him.

      “Don’t do it again.”

10

      I was never afraid to love you. No matter how deep I fell, how hard I loved, there was no question in my mind that when we were together, everything felt right. When I held out my hand, you took it.

      I wish you hadn’t let it go.

      * * *

      Three in the morning, another message I sent knowing I’d get no reply. I chose instead to bang myself against that wall again. To slam my fingers in the door, as Alicia said. And why? I could’ve spent a lifetime and a million dollars in therapy trying to figure out why I held on so tight to what no longer gave me anything but constant heartache. It was stupid; it was pointless; it was worthless.

      I did it anyway.

11

      “I can’t believe you’re still doing this.” My mother’s lip curled. “Pictures like that? And I had to find out from Connex of all places. Some stranger inviting me to a show that’s got you hanging up there on the wall with your tuchus out for the entire world to see? What an embarrassment!”

      “I didn’t know he tagged me in the pictures. But I’m not embarrassed.” I leaned to drag a pita chip through the bowl of hummus. I didn’t love that Scott’s invitation had sent my mother into a tizzy, but hell, I was an adult.

      My mother’s twisted mouth thinned. Her chin went up. “I don’t understand you, Elise. I raised you so much better. I didn’t think you were still doing all that...stuff. With all those men.”

      “Ma,” I said with a sigh, pretending she was talking about the pictures and not anything else, “it’s an art show. They’re pictures, that’s all. I could be doing a lot of worse things, couldn’t I?”

      She crossed her arms. “Why can’t you just find a nice guy and settle down?”

      “Don’t come if you don’t want to see them. Nobody’s going to force you to look.” I ignored her question, which had been asked many times and never had an answer.

      “They’re all over your whatdoyoucallit. Your Connex page.”

      My brows went up. Those pictures were ancient. “So unfriend me.”

      “All my friends can see. Joan Simon told me she was invited, too. What’s he doing, soliciting everyone to come see your naked pictures?”

      I gave her a sideways look. I could not, off the top of my head, name any of her friends who’d been granted access to my Connex page, but that didn’t mean anything. I’d accepted everyone who wanted to be my “friend” early on. Now I didn’t friend anyone.

      “Not just me. There are lots of naked pictures of lots of people.”