Spiral of Bliss: The Complete Boxed Set

by Nina Lane

  Oh… oh!

  Vibrations flood me, causing my breath to stop and my whole body to tremble. I massage myself more urgently, aching to feel every last shudder through my veins. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, watching Dean reach beneath me to finger my sex as I stay there on my hands and knees, rocking against his hand, begging…

  Another series of trembles courses through me before the sensations slow. I tug my hand from between my thighs and lie there panting as the delicious images fade.

  “Liv.”

  My eyes fly open. I stare at Dean, who’s standing by the door, his suit jacket tossed over his arm and his keys in his hand. For a heart-stopping second, I expect to see Kelsey right behind him, but the door is closed. He’s alone.

  And I’m… like this.

  Shit.

  I scramble up from the sofa and try to yank my T-shirt down over my hips, but it’s too short. I’m naked from the waist down, and a fiery blush shoots across my skin. I fumble around trying to find my pants, underwear… anything to cover myself… finally I grab the quilt from the back of the sofa and wrap it around my waist.

  I tuck one corner in to secure it, then use both hands to push my tangled hair back. I attempt a bright smile, which I’m quite certain is a miserable failure.

  “I… I wasn’t expecting you until about midnight,” I remark.

  “It’s almost one.”

  “Oh. I… uh, I lost track of time.”

  “I can see that.”

  My blush grows so hot I feel like I’ve been set aflame. It should be silly to be so embarrassed. Dean’s watched me masturbate before—hell, he’s told me numerous times to do it in front of him—but this is different.

  This is weird.

  My bra is still hitched up over my breasts. I cross my arms and try to casually tug it down again.

  “How… how was the banquet?” I can’t stop blushing. I must look like a tomato.

  He tosses his jacket over a chair. “Long and boring, but the food was okay. Chocolate mousse for dessert.”

  “How’d Kelsey do?”

  “She rose to the occasion and charmed all the right people.”

  “Think it’ll help with her proposal?”

  “Probably.”

  For a minute, we just stand there staring at each other. I can tell he wants to say something, but I don’t know what.

  I’d feel better if he’d just come over and kiss me and make some wicked comment about how I occupy myself when I’m alone. Then I’d feel a lot better if he’d tug the stupid quilt off me and slip his hand between my legs…

  “Well.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m beat. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.”

  He goes into the bedroom. I sink onto the sofa and press my hands against my hot cheeks. My eyes sting with tears of embarrassment and anger, but this time I don’t let them fall.

  Instead I just sit there and try to breathe. My disappointment in my husband is so sharp I can taste it, bitter and cold.

  “Was it porn?” he asks the next morning.

  “Yes.”

  It was also you. A month ago, I would have told him everything.

  We don’t say anything else about the episode. I’m no longer embarrassed.

  Now I’m just sad.

  CHAPTER SIX

  August 28

  “LIV, CHECK THIS OUT.”

  Allie pokes her head in the door of the bookstore. I push a few books back onto the shelf and follow her outside to admire the rainbow window display she’s constructed.

  “Looks great.” It does, too—all colorful with big, cotton clouds and silver streamers of rain.

  “Good.” Allie pushes her glasses up as we head back inside. “Hopefully it’ll get some people in for the book signing. This local gal writes novels that all have themes about color. She’s coming Saturday afternoon, so we’ll see if that helps traffic on the weekend. We could sure use it.”

  “Business isn’t so great, huh?” I ask.

  “No. And they’re raising the rent on this building at the beginning of the year, so…” Her voice trails off and she shrugs. “We’ll see what happens.”

  “Hey, how was your date?” I ask, in an effort to divert the topic from her dwindling business. “Didn’t you go out with Brent again last weekend?”

  “It was great.” Her cheeks get a little pink. “Brent is nice and cute and a great kisser.”

  “Can’t go wrong with any of those qualities.”

  “You got that right.”

  We both look up when the bell over the door rings. A plump, blond woman strides toward us, a sheaf of flyers in the crook of her arm.

  “Morning, ladies,” she says. “I’m Natalie Bergman from Epicurean, the kitchen and cookware store over on Larkspur.”

  “Oh, I love that place,” Allie says. “I got a bunch of stainless steel pots from you guys and some great napkin rings.”

  Natalie beams. “Glad to hear it. You might be interested in this, then.” She waves a flyer at both of us. “We still have a few spots open for a cooking class that starts next week. I was wondering if I could put a flyer in your window.”

  “Sure. Leave a few on our counter, too.”

  Natalie stacks up the flyers and hands one to me to tape in the window. “It’ll be a great course, held over in the Epicurean kitchen classroom. Tuition includes all supplies and food.”

  I skim the flyer. French Cuisine Classics! Learn the techniques of French cooking in this sixteen-week intensive course. All levels welcome. Tuesdays 7:00-9:00 p.m.

  “I have the registration forms too.” Natalie digs into her bag and produces another stack of papers. “If either one of you wants to take one.”

  “I will.” I’m almost surprised when the words come out.

  Natalie hands me the form. “You’ll love the course, really.”

  After she leaves, Allie asks, “You’re going to do it?”

  “I don’t know. Are you?”

  “Nah.” Her red curls flop as she shakes her head. “I’m not much for cooking.”

  “Neither am I.”

  I guess that’s the point, though. If you don’t know something, you find out about it. And if you can’t do something, you learn how. Especially if it’s something that intimidates or scares you.

  Dean isn’t home when I return to our apartment, but his briefcase is by the door. I remember that he was going to play football this evening, so I leave the flyer on the front table next to a pile of mail and put a frozen lasagna in the microwave.

  I head out to tend to my balcony garden. A few blooms still flourish in the late summer sun, but the plants are starting to wither a bit. I clip off dead flowers, sweep up the leaves, and water the plants.

  Dean comes back, dirty but cheerful because his team won the game. I’m glad when he comes over to kiss me—even with things all weird and tense between us, he still kisses me often and strokes my hair, and I still rub his lower back in passing and hug him around the waist. While we try to pretend everything is okay.

  He heads off for a quick shower before dinner while I set the table.

  “How was your day?” he asks, pulling a clean T-shirt over his head as he comes out of the bedroom.

  “Good. Worked at the bookstore for a few hours.” My stomach twists suddenly as I take the flyer from the front table. “A woman from a cookware store dropped this off. She asked if we could put it in the window.”

  Dean glances at the paper. “Classic French cuisine?”

  “I… I was thinking of registering for it.” My heart thumps against my ribs.

  “That’s a great idea,” Dean says.

  “It is?”

  “Sure.” He drops the flyer back onto the table. “Don’t you think
so?”

  “Well, yeah. Lord knows I’m a lousy cook.”

  “So you’ll learn to be a good one.”

  “It’s once a week for an entire semester,” I say.

  “Sounds like you’ll learn a lot, then.”

  “It’s expensive.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  I drum my fingers on the table. “So it’s okay if I register?”

  “Of course it’s okay.” Dean looks at me with a hint of puzzlement. “You don’t need my permission to take a class, Liv. If you want to register, go ahead. I think it’s a great idea.”

  I turn and head back into the kitchen. I wonder if I was secretly hoping he might talk me out of it, but now a spark of excitement lights inside me.

  I could actually learn how to cook. The pressing need for that particular skill hits home when I take the burned, gummy-looking lasagna out of the microwave.

  Surely I can do better than this.

  Dean pauses in the kitchen doorway, shuffling through the pile of mail.

  “Anything good?” I push a knife through the pasta.

  He doesn’t respond. I glance at him. Concern gleams in his expression as his eyes meet mine.

  “Dean?”

  He moves closer to me and puts an envelope on the counter. My heart stutters. I recognize the looped handwriting, even though I haven’t seen it in ages.

  I pick up the envelope and peer at the smudged postmark. Austin, Texas. That means nothing. She could have been passing through, probably en route to Mexico.

  I’m surprised she remembered our address. I’m surprised she even has our address.

  Dean settles his hand against the nape of my neck. “You want to open it?” he asks.

  “Not really.”

  We stand there for a few minutes. Unease simmers in my belly. Finally I rip open the flap, my fingers shaking. I unfold the single sheet of paper, and position it so Dean can read it too.

  Liv,

  Stella tells me you’re still married. I moved to Florida last year and am now traveling through the south. I could use the money you promised, so please send a cashier’s check care of the address below.

  I let the letter fall to the counter and try to think. It’s been, what… three years? I’d been married to Dean for just a few months. We were living in Los Angeles—his last fellowship position before starting at King’s University.

  Through some convoluted communication with my aunt Stella, I found out my mother was living less than an hour away in Riverside. I wrote and told her Dean and I were going to be passing through (which we weren’t), and that I’d like to see her. I didn’t expect her to respond. The following week we drove out.

  It’d been a brief visit—an hour, tops. Dean was outwardly polite and inwardly seething. My mother was indifferent toward him and hostile toward me. I tried to be composed and did not succeed.

  “Guess she doesn’t have my email address,” I say.

  Dean pulls me closer, spreading his hand over the side of my head. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. He knows what it’s like, how knotted everything gets inside me. My memories of my father are faded almost to nonexistence, and I had a twisted relationship with my mother.

  When I had a relationship with her at all.

  All the old emotions roil up into my chest—anger, fear, sadness, inadequacy. I’ve learned to control them over the years, but they swarm up again the minute she makes contact.

  Dean wraps his arms around me and shifts so our bodies are pressed together. It feels good, the muscular length of him against me, his arms tight around my back. I rest my cheek against his chest and breathe.

  He’s so solid, so secure. He’s been the one constant in my life, the one person who hasn’t abandoned me or given up on me. The one person who would tell me not to give up on myself.

  I move away from him first, pressing my lips to the side of his neck. I’m no longer hungry for dinner—least of all microwaved lasagna—and Dean says he had a late lunch anyway, so we both settle in for the evening.

  He goes into his office to work, and I change into my nightgown, curl under an old quilt, and find an I Love Lucy marathon to watch.

  Lucy Ricardo. She would’ve been a good mother. Nutty, but good. Probably a heck of a lot of fun, too.

  The candy factory episode is half over when Dean emerges. He sits beside me on the sofa, and we shift around a little until I’m lying with my head in his lap. He strokes his hand over my hair, then underneath the quilt and around to my breasts.

  It’s been two weeks now—longer than we’ve ever gone without some form of intimacy—and my whole body floods with relief and arousal. For a few minutes, Dean rubs my breasts through the cotton of my nightgown. I squirm as my nipples harden, and then he starts to roll them between his fingers. Heat tingles across my skin.

  Dean strokes the curve of my hip, gathers the material of my nightgown in his fist, and drags it up to my waist. I can feel him getting hard, and I rub my cheek against his crotch. Urgency spools through my lower body, sparked by my increasing pulse.

  I shift again until I’m lying face-up with my head still in his lap, and he’s looking down at me with a hot gaze that makes my blood shimmer. I squeeze my thighs together because the delicious throb is starting. Dean pushes the quilt aside and pulls my nightgown up farther so my breasts are exposed.

  His breath escapes in a rush as he palms the full globes. I shiver.

  “So damn beautiful,” he mutters.

  It’s an incredibly erotic feeling, lying there with my head in his lap and my nightgown bunched up, naked except for my white cotton panties. He starts stroking me again, sliding his hand to rub my breasts, my nipples, and back down over my belly to the edge of my panties. He slips his fingers teasingly beneath the elastic.

  “You want to come, beauty?” he whispers.

  The husky note in his voice fires my excitement. In response, I writhe against his hand. I’m still squeezing my thighs together because the throb is building, but Dean urges my legs apart.

  He pushes his hand beneath my panties, fingers toying through the damp curls, until he reaches the place where my arousal is centered. Then he splays his hand over my folds, sliding one finger easily into me while his thumb circles my clit.

  It’s not enough. I buck my hips, trying to thrust myself harder against his hand. A smile tugs at his mouth. He slides his arm beneath my shoulders, his other hand coming around to pluck at my nipples. Fire streams through my veins.

  I press my face into Dean’s shirt and moan. My skin is hot, flushed. His breath echoes through his chest. I feel my arousal coiling tighter, and even though I crave that explosive release, I love this moment of being close to my husband again, hearing the pound of his heart against my ear, the heat of his body flowing into mine.

  He grips me harder just before the tension breaks, as if he knows I can’t prevent it any longer. His hands and fingers work harder—in me, over me, on me—and then the sensations rocket through me, causing me to choke out his name as I clench my thighs around his hand and ride the exquisite wave.

  He holds on to me, easing the last tingles from my body, and then I go limp and just breathe against him while he strokes my damp belly.

  After a few minutes, he tugs my nightgown back over my hips. I can still feel his erection and think I should do something about it, but he doesn’t seem to expect anything in return, and anyway I’m drained from all the tension of the past weeks and now this.

  So I’m grateful when he pulls the quilt back over me and lies down behind me, wrapping one arm around my waist. There’s not a heck of a lot of room on the sofa for both of us, but it’s a warm, cozy cocoon, and I fall asleep with the movement of his breathing against my back.

  I go to the bank the next day and get
a cashier’s check. I consider writing a return letter to my mother, but I can’t think of anything to say. I put the check in an envelope and seal it, then scribble the address and drop it in the mailbox on the way home.

  It’s unsettled me, the unexpected contact. I try not to think of my mother often, even though she’s still there like a shadow.

  I don’t have many pictures of her or good memories either, but the letter ignites flashes of our life together—the hot, vinyl interior of our old car, the floorboards littered with crumpled potato-chip packages and candy wrappers.

  The stares of other kids as I walked into what felt like the hundredth classroom. Sitting cross-legged on a beach boardwalk as my mother arranged her bracelets and necklaces for sale. The sound of her moans coming from a stranger’s bedroom.

  There’s now a perpetual tight knot in my chest. I try to ignore it, try not to think about the fact that it’s tangled up with all the other confusion that has risen to the surface in the past few weeks.

  After Dean leaves the following morning, I clean the living room and do a load of laundry before heading out. On my way to the Historical Museum, I stop to get a coffee at a place on Ruby Street.

  “Mrs. West?”

  I’m not accustomed to being called that, so at first I don’t respond.

  “Mrs. West?”

  I turn. Behind me is the blond grad student I’d met outside Dean’s office—Marcy… no, Maggie. She’s looking at me a trifle uncertainly, her pretty face bare of makeup, her hair pulled back into a messy bun. A heavy-looking backpack is slung over her shoulder.

  “Maggie Hamilton,” she says. “We met last week. I’m one of Professor West’s students.”

  “Yes, of course. How are you?”

  “Busy.” She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Grad school is not for the faint of heart.”

  “No, I imagine it’s not.”

  “Everyone tells me I should be glad I’m working with Professor West, though.” Maggie holds up a finger to indicate that I should wait while she places her coffee order. Then she turns back to me. “You know, because he’s so brilliant, and it’ll be great to have his name behind my work.”