Spice Box: Sixteen Steamy Stories

by Raine Miller

“I’m not… I mean, I don’t want you to think I’m playing games,” I said.

  The idea that he might think that of me was laughable. I was incapable of playing games with men. I didn’t know any of the rules.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

  I fumbled to fit my key in the lock, my eyes stinging again. Dean waited until I was safely inside, but didn’t respond to my mumbled good-night. Still, I felt his gaze on me through the glass door before I turned to walk up the stairs to my apartment.

  ***

  Old memories and nightmares blistered my sleep that night until finally I got up and spent hours staring blindly at the TV. A black, empty pit cracked open inside me. At dawn, I hauled myself over to my computer and opened my email to find a message from him.

  Liv, I’m so damn sorry. Can I see you again?

  No. That was all I needed to say. I would never hear from him again.

  N-o… My hands trembled on the keyboard. No, you can’t, Dean. You can’t see me again, and I shouldn’t want to see you…

  I stared at the message, trashed it, and wrote: You can come over tonight.

  I hit the send button before I could think anymore. I sat there with my heart pounding until his response came four minutes later. I’ll be there at seven.

  I dressed and went to morning classes, worked an afternoon shift at Jitter Beans, then tried to study at the library before going home. I showered and changed into loose black pants and a T-shirt.

  After clipping my hair back into a ponytail, I paced the living room until the bell rang five minutes before seven. I buzzed Dean in and left my apartment door partway open.

  “Liv?” He knocked and pushed it open the rest of the way.

  “Hi.” I ran my shaking hands over my thighs, unable to stop myself from drinking in the arresting sight of him in jeans and a rugby shirt that looked thick and soft. His hair was rumpled in the way I was beginning to love, the length brushing the top of his collar and curling over his ears.

  He shut the door and shucked off his jacket, not looking anywhere but at me.

  “Liv, I’m sorry,” he said.

  I shook my head. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it was.” His eyes flashed with self-directed irritation. “I went too fast, and I scared you. I didn’t mean to.”

  Oh, Sir Galahad…

  My throat constricted. “I wasn’t… I don’t want you to think…”

  I didn’t even know what to say, much less how to say it. As much as I had thought about being with a man like Dean West, I didn’t know if I could ever actually do it.

  And I didn’t understand why he would even want me to.

  Dean was successful, authoritative, experienced, sophisticated, assured.

  I was not.

  “Look, I…” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, slanting his gaze away from me. “I haven’t been with a woman in a while, Liv.”

  “You haven’t?”

  “Since before my grandfather got sick. I had to deal with him and his illness, and between that and my book it didn’t leave room for anything else. Or the desire, really.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m telling you because you’re the first woman in a long time whom I like,” he said. “And I didn’t mean to act like a horny teenager on his first date, but I did and I’m sorry. I do have more control than that and can move more slowly.”

  I almost smiled. Well, that was something. A sexually experienced professor who had been abstinent for a while, and now wanted… me. It would have been funny if it weren’t another glaring reason why we couldn’t possibly work.

  Or could we?

  A whisper in my mind, faint as the last ring of an echo.

  I stared at Dean, the fathomless depths of his brown eyes, the lock of hair brushing his forehead. I remembered when he had pulled me close to him, and we fit together like the pieces of a puzzle.

  I looked at his mouth and recalled how it had settled seamlessly against my lips. How his body had locked to mine, my curves yielding to the hard planes of his chest.

  Maybe we could fit in other ways too, convex and concave, angles and hollows. His confidence might bolster my own. Certainly he could show me what true pleasure felt like. And I…

  I’d have loved to believe I was a fair lady to his knight, but from what I could remember of the King Arthur tales, none of the women met with a desirable end.

  No, I was just Olivia Winter. Still trying to find my way through. A woman who knew very well that knights didn’t exist but held out hope that good men outnumbered the bad. A woman who still believed in leaps of faith, as long as you trusted your instincts.

  I gestured toward the sofa. Dean and I sat down next to each other. Anxiety clenched my stomach as I struggled for a way to tell him the truth.

  “I’m sorry I freaked out last night,” I finally said. “It really wasn’t you.”

  “What was it, then?” Dean asked.

  “I…” Just say it.

  A crease formed between his eyebrows. “Liv, I shouldn’t have—”

  “Dean, I’m a virgin.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  My heart felt like it was about to claw out of my chest.

  “I… I’m a virgin,” I repeated. “I… I’ve never had intercourse before.”

  “Oh.” Comprehension dawned in his expression. “So that’s why you…”

  “I just… I don’t want you to think it was anything you did,” I said. “It wasn’t. Everything we did… I liked it. I wanted it.”

  I wanted you.

  “It’s weird, I know,” I continued. Sweat collected at the base of my throat. “I’m twenty-four.”

  “It’s not weird,” Dean said.

  Oh, with me, it definitely is.

  “Well.” I let out a shaky breath. “I wanted you to know. When I… when I asked you about your girlfriends, I didn’t tell you that I haven’t had a serious boyfriend. Ever. I’ve dated some, but mostly I’ve just kept to myself.”

  He frowned, as if he were trying to figure out what I wasn’t saying. I avoided looking into his eyes, tracing my gaze over his shoulders and arms. My pulse tripped at the way he sat—the wide masculine stance of his feet on the carpet, his hands linked loosely between his knees.

  “I’m not frigid or anything,” I added quickly. “I mean, I have a collection of erotica and I… I touch myself… oh, God.”

  My face flared with embarrassment. What the hell am I doing? I pressed my hands to my cheeks and closed my eyes.

  Dean moved close enough that I could smell his delicious mixture of soap and autumn air, and then he closed his hands around my wrists and pulled them away from my face.

  I forced my eyes open, my throat aching. Tension still lined his features, as if he knew there was more, but warmth and affection filled his expression. That alone eased some of my rampant fear.

  “Olivia.” He skimmed his fingers across my hot cheek. “I want you. I won’t hide that. I can’t. But that’s not the only reason I asked you out.”

  “Why did you, then?”

  “Because you… you’re different.” He rubbed a lock of my hair between his thumb and forefinger. “I’ve spent most of my life trying too damn hard to prove myself to other people. To surpass their expectations. Or trying to fix things when I failed. But that only meant driving myself harder to succeed.”

  Something inside me loosened at his confession. I knew all about presenting a very specific version of yourself to others. No matter how heart-wrenchingly difficult it was.

  “I don’t feel like I have to try so hard with you,” Dean said.

  “So you’re saying I’m easy?” I lifted an eyebrow skeptically.

  A smile tugged at his mouth. “I mean you’re easy to be with. I need to prove myself to you, but in a good way. Because I want to, not because I have to.”

  He suddenly looked embarrassed and let go of me. He paced to the windows, his hands shoved into his pockets.

&nbs
p; “I don’t think turtles have very interesting lives.”

  North’s voice, wry and gravelly, echoed at the back of my mind. Some of my anxiety eased.

  Dean was no reclusive turtle. That much was certain. He had an innate self-assurance, a way of moving through the world that I wished I could cultivate. And he was sexually confident, even I could see that, experienced in how to please a woman. He would know exactly what to do.

  The question was—did I want him to do it to me?

  The answer was—

  I gazed at the expanse of Dean’s back, the way he stood with his feet apart, as if he were rooted to the ground. Solid. Secure.

  “What about those string figures, professor?” I asked.

  “What about them?”

  “You said you’d show me how to do them.” I paused. “I’ll bet you carry a piece of string around, don’t you?”

  He turned to face me, his eyes sparking with amusement. He dug into the pocket of his jeans and produced a loop of string. With a few maneuvers, he hooked it around his fingers into a familiar pattern and approached me.

  “Do you know cat’s cradle?” he asked.

  “Believe it or not, I do.” I pinched the X-shaped pattern, pulled it around to the middle, and fastened the string around my fingers.

  Dean took the string from the top, looped it to form another pattern, then held out his hands and let me make the next move.

  CHAPTER 8

  Dean came into Jitter Beans often over the next couple of weeks. Every time I saw him, my pulse sped up and bright, happy sparks flew through me. We had dinner, met between classes for lunch or coffee, took walks in the Arboretum.

  He didn’t kiss me again in those early days, though he touched me often. Gentle touches—pushing a lock of hair away from my cheek, holding my hand, cupping the back of my neck. The brush of his fingers filled me with a pleasant heat.

  The more time I spent with Dean, the more I liked and trusted him. And it wasn’t long before he proved that he was meant to be my hero alone.

  “Bears,” he said one afternoon as we walked up State Street after my shift at Jitter Beans.

  “No way.” I poked him in the side. “Definitely the Packers. I’d be a terrible Wisconsinite if I weren’t a Packer Backer.”

  He scoffed. “Then you must love dancing the polka.”

  “Why would I love dancing the polka?”

  “It’s the Wisconsin state dance. Since you’re such a loyal Wisconsinite and all.”

  I poked him in the side again, harder this time, which made him laugh and reach out to tweak my nose. I decided not to be annoyed since it was so darned cute the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed.

  “How do you even know the Wisconsin state dance if you’re from California?” I asked. “Oh, I forgot. You’re kind of a geek.”

  He flashed me a smile. “Got a problem with that?”

  “I have a problem with the fact that you prefer the Bears,” I said. “Star Wars or Star Trek?”

  “Trek.”

  “We are so incompatible,” I moaned. “Star Wars.”

  “Lucas jumped the shark with Episode One,” Dean said. “Star Trek has always had a universal message about justice and a utopian society.”

  “Star Wars is about the battle between good and evil. What’s more universal than that?”

  “Star Trek had alien babes in bikinis.”

  “You don’t remember Princess Leia’s bikini?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He got a glazed, faraway look in his eyes. “Good point.”

  “I rest my case. Ben and Jerry’s or Häagen-Dazs?”

  “Both.”

  “Me too. Except for Chunky Monkey, which is gross.”

  “Ah.” Dean gave a sigh of relief. “We have common ground. Tolstoy or Dostoevsky?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, professor.”

  Dean winked at me. I smiled back, enjoying the lovely heart flutters spreading warmth through my veins.

  He opened the passenger side door for me, then went around to get behind the wheel of his car.

  “How was work?” he asked as he headed toward Dayton Street.

  I told him about an espresso maker mishap and a couple of irrelevant stories about the customers. We took the elevator to my apartment, which he hadn’t been in since the night of my confession two weeks ago.

  “Nice place, by the way,” he remarked as we went inside. “I didn’t notice before. How long have you lived here?”

  “Since July.” The rent on the shoebox-sized apartment was more than I could comfortably pay, but it was close to downtown, the university, and Jitter Beans. I’d spent a lot of time at garage and rummage sales looking for inexpensive furnishings, and I was pleased with the way my decorating had turned out.

  I’d found some mismatched round tables that I refinished a light honey color and placed alongside my curved sofa. Floating shelves held my books, prints of English gardens lined the walls, and I’d placed lamps strategically to light the corners. Sheer, sage-green curtains softened the utilitarian blinds, and my indoor garden of fifteen plants sat on a multi-tiered stand beneath the window.

  Dean touched one of the plants. “You really have a green thumb. What kind are these?”

  “Mostly flowers, but there’s a spider ivy on the bottom tier,” I said. “Geraniums, begonias, pentas. I bought a yellow amaryllis last week. I haven’t named it yet.”

  “Named it?”

  Embarrassment heated my cheeks. “I name all my plants. Svengali, Mrs. Danvers, Cruella de Vil, the White Witch.”

  He turned to look at me. “You name your plants after villains?”

  “Just a silly thing. A way of turning something bad into something good.” I went toward the kitchen. “Can I get you a soda?”

  “Just water, thanks.”

  I poured him a glass and returned to the living room. He’d wandered over to examine the books on the shelves. I flushed at the thought that I had some spicy erotica titles tucked in among the textbooks. If he saw them, however, he gave no indication. Or he didn’t mind.

  Instead he picked up the small, framed picture of North that I kept on the lower shelf. Nervousness rolled through me suddenly. I’d never talked about North with anyone, not because I didn’t want to but because I’d never had anyone to talk about him with.

  I’d taken the picture outside North’s workshop and made a bunch of silly faces until he’d finally smiled. His grin showed through his bushy beard, the little braid tied with a red ribbon visible on the right side, and his leathery features squinted against the sun. His long, graying hair was pulled back into a ponytail.

  “Your dad?” Dean asked.

  “No.” I put the glass on the coffee table and wiped my hands on my skirt. “Just a good friend. Not that kind of friend,” I added when he glanced at me with a hint of a scowl. “The kind of friend who helps you remember which way is up. And who reminds you that sometimes that’s the only direction you can go.”

  Dean looked at me, still holding the photo. “You’re lucky to have a friend like that.”

  “North was… special.”

  “North?”

  “Short for Northern Star Richmond.”

  “Seriously?”

  I smiled. “His parents were hippies.”

  Dean put the photo back on the shelf. “So you used to live in California?”

  “I traveled there a few times with my mother, then I went back before I started at community college. Lived on a commune.”

  “A commune?”

  “They’re called other things now. Intentional communities. Cooperative living. But, yeah, it was near Santa Cruz. Twelve Oaks. My mother and I lived there when I was thirteen, then I went back by myself a few years later. I thought I’d just visit for a week or so, but I stayed for a year. North was the guy who ran the place.”

  I realized I was opening the door to questions I didn’t want to answer. I gestured to the sofa. “So make yourself at home. I’m
just going to take a quick shower and change.”

  “Take your time.”

  He settled on the sofa and picked up a coffee-table book about the history of literature. I went into my bedroom and closed the door. As I stripped out of my clothes, my heart pounded harder. I was acutely aware that a thin wall separated me from Dean.

  Was he remembering that night in his apartment? Was he thinking about kissing me again? Was he thinking about me undressing?

  My blood warmed at the speculation. I pushed my underwear off and stood there naked for a moment, staring at my reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. I didn’t often look at myself naked. My legs were short but well shaped, and I had a curvy, full-breasted body that I was still, at twenty-four, trying to feel comfortable in.

  I slid my hands down my waist, which tapered to round hips and my not-quite-flat belly. I tried to imagine Dean’s hands on me, his long fingers sliding across my hipbones and down between my legs.

  I shivered and turned away from the mirror. My cheeks warmed. I pulled on a thick robe and ducked into the bathroom. After turning on the shower, I stood under the hot spray and wondered what it would feel like to breach the distance between my imagination and reality.

  My very vivid imagination. My very mundane reality.

  I wanted to live in the space where the two met. I imagined it as a place of sunlight and green trees where a man and I wanted each other with crackling desire and our bodies fell into pleasure.

  I closed my eyes and let the water stream over my face. What if Dean was thinking about me in the shower? What if he was imagining what I looked like naked and wet? I trembled at the thought, almost feeling the heat of his gaze.

  A bolt of arousal went through me. I grabbed the soap and lathered up, drawing in a sharp breath when my palms glided over my hard nipples. Pleasure zinged along my nerves. He was there. Sitting so close…

  I rubbed soapy froth over my belly. The bubbles slipped from my skin. Hot water pounded on my neck and shoulders. I grasped the shower bar and rubbed the soap between my legs, unable to resist pressing a finger into my cleft. A shudder rocked me. Oh…

  Was Dean imagining this right now? Was he thinking about me rubbing soap over my body? Was he picturing me playing with myself, sliding my forefinger over the folds of my sex, pressing my hand against my clit?