Kevin kissed her chest, sucking lightly on each nipple before licking a trail to her navel. Rimming the small divot with his tongue, he touched her thighs, kneading them as he urged them apart. Light shone through the window, harsher from the lateness of the morning. His fingers traveled upwards to her sex, finding the top arch. He ran his thumb down her folds, stroking along the full length of her opening.
Sasha bit her lip to keep from screaming, touching her own breasts as she pinched her nipples. She wanted him again and again, never getting enough. Soon his mouth replaced his hand, kissing her hard. His finger thrust up inside her, teasing and tormenting with its light pressure.
She wanted more.
Sasha seized his arm, forcing it away as she pulled him up her body. Their lips joined, sawing hard against each other. Her heels dug into the bed and she couldn’t keep the moans from escaping her lips with each panting breath. He reached into the nightstand, grabbing a condom, and it felt like an eternity before he was ready and poised to enter her.
She rocked her hips into him. He thrust with an expert grace that left her heart racing and her body unable to resist his pull. She couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t stop, couldn’t think. It was always like this with him. Her nipples brushed across his chest, the stiff buds finding comfort in his warmth. His mouth slid across her chin to her neck, kissing along her jaw to her ear. He gently bit the lobe, sucking it between his teeth.
Sasha rode his deep strokes and it didn’t take long before an orgasm took hold of her entire body. She tensed, quivering uncontrollably. Kevin’s groan of completion joined hers as he too met his release. Her legs fell weakly to the side.
Kevin gave her a quick kiss before rolling to lie next to her. By small degrees, her heart slowed. Sasha stared at the ceiling, content to just be.
Sasha never realized that doing close to nothing could make for a perfect day. As morning melted into late afternoon, they didn’t leave the apartment. Not once did they open a book or talk about Mesoamerican culture. Dr Prichard was never mentioned, neither was graduation, nor declaring majors, or the fact that she needed to take that final plunge and make a decision about her future. Instead they watched movies, did her laundry, discussed literature and debated ice cream flavors.
Conversation flowed easily in aimless directions, punctuated by long bouts of laughter. They even prepared a picnic, spreading it over the comforter as they lounged on his bed in front of the television. Kevin didn’t keep a fully stocked kitchen and the meal was far from fancy, but Sasha thought it wonderful. Ham and Swiss cheese sandwiches were cut into small squares as the main dish. A chipped ceramic plate served as a relish tray, piled high with raw baby carrots and broccoli, with an onion dip they’d made out of powdered soup mix and sour cream.
Dipping a carrot, Sasha bit it in half. ‘This dip is delicious. I don’t think it’s on my diet plan, but right now I don’t care.’
‘Diet plan?’ Kevin gave a small laugh, his eyes roaming over her body. ‘You’re not really on a diet, are you?’
Sasha nodded. ‘Always. I gained a great deal of weight when I first started college. I never want to be there again, so I watch what I eat.’
‘I think your weight is fine,’ he said. ‘But I guess, if you’re doing it to be healthy, that’s all right.’
‘Um.’ Sasha frowned, not liking the sensitive turn the topic had taken. ‘Thanks for the permission?’
‘I just mean, as long as you’re not overdoing it, like taking pills and starving yourself out of some misguided notion that you should lose weight. I remember seeing you a few years ago. I don’t think you were ever fat, at least not that I saw.’
‘Well, maybe that was after I lost the weight again,’ she said, stiffening.
‘Wow. We’ve hit a nerve.’ Kevin pushed up, sitting on the bed. ‘No need to get defensive or overly sensitive. I’m not judging. I agreed healthy is good. All I said was you’re not fat and as long as you’re not popping diet pills—’
‘I’m not defensive,’ she argued, well aware that her tone said just the opposite. Sasha grabbed the plates and began stacking to carry them to the kitchen. How in the world did this conversation start? Now they were fighting? Sasha didn’t know how to change it back around, as she continued, ‘And I’m really tired of you accusing me of being sensitive. You do that all the time. You say it like I’m some kind of irrational, stupid female unable to understand your great, all-knowing intellect.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You are on diet pills.’
‘No,’ she denied, only to mumble, ‘Not anymore.’ Carrying the plates, she hurried to the door. ‘I’ll do the dishes.’
‘Wait, Sasha, stop.’ His words were almost a command. ‘Don’t you think we should talk about this? If you’re taking pills to lose weight—’
‘No.’ She didn’t stop walking. ‘I don’t think we need to talk about this. Can’t we just leave it? Today was wonderful and light and no pressure.’
‘But, if you have a problem—’
‘Omigod, I don’t have a problem. You’re blowing this way out of proportion. I took some pills I got from a –’ Sasha hesitated ‘– a health store. Supplements. It’s no big deal and, frankly, my diet methods are of no concern to you. I don’t even know why we’re talking about this.’
‘No concern? But, I thought . . .’
Sasha glanced back to see him standing in the living room, frowning at her in confusion. The day had been going so well and now she wanted nothing more than to scream at him and throw something at his head. She hated his commanding tone. ‘One little offhand comment about my diet and suddenly you decide to re-enact the inquisition.’
‘Because I show concern? Don’t you think “inquisition” is an overreaction?’ He crossed his arms over his chest.
Sasha set the plates on the counter. She glanced around, realizing she didn’t know where he kept the storage containers for leftover food. Not wanting to ask him, she said, ‘I have to go to Kat’s to pick up that camera. She’s expecting me.’
‘Regardless of how you take it, I am concerned. I had a friend in school who abused diet pills and ended up starving herself to death.’
‘I’m not abusing anything,’ she tried to make her tone final.
‘Don’t you think we should talk?’ He was behind her now, blocking her only escape. Sasha could see he wanted to say more. She got the sense that this wasn’t just about the pills, but her unwillingness to talk about it with him.
‘You want to talk? How about telling me that little story behind your scar? You think I don’t see how you tense when I touch it? When I look at it? And when I started to ask about it, you turned on the television.’ She put her hands on her hips, lifting her chin. ‘Let’s talk about that, Kevin. Or is that too sensitive of a subject for you? How about we talk about why you’re so emotionally distant and impossible to read?’
He glanced down, touching his chest where the scar lay hidden beneath his shirt. He ran his fingers along his pectoral, tracing it. ‘Like I was saying, when I was a senior in school, a classmate was incredibly depressed and one night at a party she just snapped. I was in the way. A few months after the stabbing, her illness got the better of her and she killed herself by starving herself to death. Her name was Laurie and we’d dated for six months. I should have seen the signs and, because I didn’t, she’s dead. Are you happy? Is that what you wanted to know? So when you tell me you can’t read me and I’m emotionally distant, then yes, I suppose I am but I have my reasons. Don’t expect that to change.’
Sasha’s posture lost some of its stiffness. The sound of his voice, steady and matter-of-fact, warred with the look in his eyes. She’d been trying to turn the tables on him, but suddenly she wished she’d just kept her mouth shut. When she moved past him, out the door, he stood to one side to let her through.
Sasha concentrated on not running from him, but keeping her pace slow and confident. ‘I need to call my sister.’
She made a show of
checking her messenger bag, trying to think of the appropriate thing to say about his story. Without being plugged in, her phone had shut itself off automatically to conserve the battery. When she turned it on, the log showed she had eleven missed calls. Sasha scrolled through the numbers – Kat, Kat, Mom, Kat three more times, Mom twice and then . . . She froze, whispering in surprise, ‘Trevor?’ The last three calls had been from Trevor. What did he want? Almost guiltily, she glanced back to where Kevin stood. There was no way she was returning Trevor’s call now. She grabbed her bag and said, ‘I’ll just call her on the way.’
‘Don’t you think you should get your clothes out of the drier before you go running out of here to call your ex?’ All openness in his expression had disappeared, replaced by the cold emotionless mask from when they’d first met. She couldn’t read his features or penetrate the hardened glaze covering his eyes.
‘I’m going to get the camera from Kat for our presentation,’ Sasha said, averting her gaze. It wasn’t a lie. She planned on going to her sister’s house.
‘Don’t lie to me, Sasha. I’m a big boy. If you’re cheating on your boyfriend with me, just tell me.’
She gasped in affront. ‘I am not cheating!’
‘What else am I to think with the way you’re acting?’ He put his hands on his hips.
‘You’re acting like we’re an exclusive couple. I don’t owe you my life story. I don’t owe you an explanation about my diet or my phone calls.’
‘So this is just some affair to you? A way to pass the time?’
Still, she couldn’t read his face. Why did he have to sound so calm about it? Why did everything he said make her physically ill? What was wrong with her? And why didn’t he say what he wanted out of this relationship? Or at least give some sort of hint?
‘No,’ Sasha said, shaking her head. ‘This isn’t just something to pass the time. I do like being with you. I like being here. I . . . It’s just . . .’
‘What?’
I’m scared, she wanted to scream.
‘Affairs like ours burn hot, but they don’t last.’ Sasha’s hands shook as she spoke. What she really wanted to say was, Tell me I’m wrong, Kevin. Tell me this is more than an affair.
His penetrating eyes finally dropped to the floor. ‘Your clothes are in the drier.’
She didn’t need to be told again. The statement was an obvious dismissal and nowhere near the declaration of hope her heart had been begging for.
Chapter Nine
‘Omigod, Kat, I might pride myself on being smart, but really I’m an idiot. I told him affairs like ours burn hot, but they don’t last and he said nothing.’ Sasha flung herself dramatically onto Kat’s white couch. ‘And that story about getting stabbed. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I should have said something. What should I have said? Sucks to be you? Sorry to hear that?’
‘You should have said, want me to kiss it better?’ Kat offered with a small chuckle.
Sasha groaned by way of an answer, not meeting Kat’s gaze. Her sister’s East Seventy-Eighth apartment was immaculate. The state of the home wasn’t because Kat was a clean freak, but because Vincent could afford to hire maids.
‘I’m sorry, Sash. I don’t mean to make light of this. I only wanted to make you laugh.’ Kat set the coffee mug she’d brought for Sasha down on the low coffee table.
‘I know. I’m just . . .’ Sasha groaned louder, looking around her sister’s home as if she could find the answered hidden within the pristine white walls, polished wood floors and dark floor to ceiling curtains. She didn’t like feeling this way. Indecisiveness was nothing new to her, but the uncertainty she felt with Kevin was too much.
The living room was nearly thirty feet long and eighteen feet wide, with towering ceilings. Large casement windows looked southwards over the city. A wood-burning fireplace dominated one wall, centered between two built-in bookcases. It was more space than any three people could ever need.
Her sister decorated with her photographs. Sasha’s favourite was an oversized canvas filled with pictures Kat had taken of the sisters throughout their life. The younger years started in the middle and spiraled out as they grew. It was a testament to their lives, a work in progress. At the end of the spiral, the newest photographs were of all of them together at the hospital when Kat had Mariah. Even Ella had managed to make it home for the event.
Sasha’s eyes turned slowly to where her sister waited patiently.
‘Sasha—’ Kat began, only to be interrupted.
‘Wait, no, I take that back. I said the affair line and he said –’ Sasha dropped her voice into a lower pitch before finishing ‘– Your clothes are in the drier.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Oh, I had laundry and was wearing his clothes.’ Sasha waved a dismissing hand.
‘No, I mean about hot affairs burning out. How do you know? The very fact that you’re here, admitting to me that you’ve slept with Kevin is a big step for you. That seems much more than some hot affair.’
‘You already knew. The chauffeur told you about dropping me off and you said you could tell when you saw us together at Annika.’
‘Yeah, but you’re here, telling me the whole of it.’ Kat took a sip of her own coffee, only to slowly blow on it. ‘Go on.’
‘This other guy I was seeing is, was . . .’ Sasha paused, not wanting to say the word out loud. ‘Fate. He’s stable, handsome and rich. I mean, there were signs that we were meant to be. I know it doesn’t make complete sense, but I assure you I made the decision with my head, logically. Now he’s calling and I know he’ll ask for me to come back to him. I should say yes. All the logical answers point to yes.’
‘You mean you made the decision with his wallet,’ Kat corrected. ‘’Cause all I’m hearing is he’s handsome, rich and the logical decision. I’m not even hearing a name.’
‘Trevor.’
‘Trevor, what?’
‘Kingston.’
‘Trevor Kingston?’ Kat gasped. ‘You mean the New York Kingstons? His parents go to the same social events as Vincent’s. I’ve even met him. He’s never said a word.’
Sasha sighed. ‘We haven’t told people about it. He has family obligations and didn’t want our relationship spread all over the newspapers.’
‘Stop.’ Kat held up her hand. ‘Had you been dating him exclusively for longer than a year?’
‘Yes. Much longer.’
‘Then I don’t understand the secrecy.’ Kat set her coffee cup down and took a deep breath. ‘Sash, you know I love you, but I have to tell you something. You’re better than Trevor. I know that the money and charm of society can be very alluring, but it’s a shark tank. If you don’t feel the kind of passion that a woman should feel with a man she’s going to marry, the kind of passion Vincent and I have for each other, then you’ll never survive in the tank. They’ll eat your soul alive until you’re a hollow shell.’
‘I’m not stupid,’ Sasha defended.
‘I know,’ Kat slid closer to Sasha’s side, ‘but you have to see there is something wrong with your boyfriend not telling the world about you. He should be shouting it from every rooftop and taking ads out in the papers. You should not be some shameful secret.’
‘I liked the privacy. I didn’t tell all of you about him,’ Sasha said. Her stomach clenched into hard knots. ‘I can hardly fault Trevor for doing what I was doing.’
‘There’s something wrong with that, too,’ Kat insisted. ‘You should be right up there with him singing from the rooftops. Instead you treat him like a dirty little secret. I understand keeping it to yourself for the first few months, but if it’s serious, then you should express that. You should want to express that.’
‘I’m not you.’ Sasha held very still. ‘I like privacy.’
‘Let me ask it this way.’ Kat said the words carefully. ‘Which of these two men, Kevin or Trevor, can make you so angry you want to scream and hit?’
‘Kevin,’ she an
swered without hesitation.
‘Which one makes you feel insecure?’
‘Both,’ she admitted. Knowing her sister was really trying to help, she decided to attempt to open up completely. ‘With Trevor I never feel like I’m quite good enough. I feel like he’s always watching what I eat and hinting that I need to remove my tattoo. It’s not really a big thing, no one’s perfect, but it does annoy me. And his mother – ugh.’
‘Don’t get me started with mothers. My in-laws are crazy.’ Kat gave a short laugh. ‘Our mother is crazy.’ Her eyes rounded. ‘Oh, no, I’m a mom. I’m probably going to be crazy, too.’
Sasha chuckled, despite herself. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll save Mariah if you go crazy.’
‘I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.’ Kat changed the subject back to the topic at hand, just as fast as she’d detoured it. ‘Now, tell me about Kevin.’
Sasha picked imaginary dust off of the white couch cushion. ‘With Kevin I never know where I stand. I can’t read his expressions and he’s so intelligent. Who can keep a man like that interested?’
Kat hummed thoughtfully. ‘Who’s the better kisser? Who makes your heart beat faster? Your knees weak?’
Sasha didn’t need to think about her answer, but felt bad comparing the two men. ‘Kevin.’
‘Then I think you already know the answer to your problem.’ Kat rubbed Sasha’s arm, comforting her.
‘I want Kevin,’ Sasha whispered, her voice trembling, ‘but I don’t know if he wants me, or if it could even work. He’s confident about what he wants from life and I’m not sure a relationship fits into that plan.’
‘Kevin will go far. He might not become rich or high society, but he’ll do great things. He’ll be an adventure and I think you’re smart enough to keep him interested and he’s challenging enough to keep you on your toes.’ Kat reached across Sasha’s back, hugging her. ‘I saw the way he looked at you, we all did. I don’t know what you mean about not being able to read his expressions. To us, he was an open book. And I don’t see any reason why his plans for an adventurous future can’t include you. Don’t you always say you wish you had more of a daring life?’
Degrees of Passion Page 15
