Chapter 18 #2
Frowns abounded on that couch. “He mentioned it a few times when we were working together. Offered me a ton of condolences and expressed his happiness that I was continuing Desirée’s work. It extremely unnerved me,
but I had already decided to get under his good graces so I could pursue answers regarding her death. Then I found out about his club, and… let slip that I was into it. It worked. I was invited when he had an opening because the last couple moved to another country.”
“Yes, but he finds out who I am in conjunction with you… he may start to suspect something. Then bam! We’re dead too.”
“Please don’t act like I don’t know that.” Varen lifted her hand, brushing against the tote bag and accidentally opening the top. She happened to glance at the contents. “Is… is that…”
Nala sat up with a start, snatching the bag and shoving the disrupted lingerie to the bottom, beneath her wallet, scarf, and extra tampons. “You didn’t see anything. Don’t snoop in my bag!”
Varen’s ability to suppress laughter was nowhere near as good as her marketing skills. Had to be, because she ran a billion-dollar business while being completely unable to control her emotions right now. How often does this woman laugh, anyway? Probably not as much as Nala, and that said something.
“Those are some serious panties you’re carting around.”
Caught, Nala opened her bag and pulled out the nearest pair of lacy undies she could find. “You want a pair, Ms. Lake? They would look fantastic on your nicely kempt hair. Oh! Even better! Give a pair to your uptight assistant. At least he’ll have an excuse for having something shoved up his ass.”
Varen plucked the undies and noted the tag still hanging off them. “Didn’t this place close a week ago?”
“How would you know? Go shopping for lingerie a lot, do you?”
She rolled her eyes. “The place used to be on my commute home. Stuck out in my mind.”
Nala shrugged. “I work at a donation center. Someone brought them because they couldn’t be sold… but we can’t resell them because they’re lingerie, so…”
“So, you… took them…”
“Well, what do you want from me! Girl’s gotta need fancy panties, right?”
“Do not tell me you’re going to wear donated panties for me.”
“Excuse me! For you?”
Varen wasn’t listening. She was swinging the black lace back and forth in front of her nose, guffawing with every muscle in her abdomen.
I’ve never seen her laugh like this before.
Almost like she was human. Almost like she wasn’t a Portland robot who functioned on passive-aggression and quoting Nietzsche Next you’ll tell me she doesn’t smoke pot.
Or wear plaid. Or dye her armpit hair blue.
“That’s amazing.” She dropped the underwear back into Nala’s tote bag. “You came here with a note… and with a bag full of used knickers to wear to The Aviary…”
“Yeah, well, never let it be known that my life isn’t super serious all the time.”
When she finally stopped laughing, Varen had a flushed face the color of Mars. “After the workday I’ve had today, I needed that.”
Nala didn’t ask. She figured she wouldn’t understand anyway.
She caught Varen staring at her shirt. At first, Nala thought she was checking out her tits, as they were glamorous under a thick blue polyester shirt, but she realized Varen was reading the stitching above the side pocket.
“I didn’t know you worked for that company.”
“You don’t know much about me, really.” I don’t know that much about you either. Nala preferred it that way. Fewer emotions.
“No, I suppose I don’t. I know what matters.”
“Yes, you do.”
Why did they have to get so serious so soon? Nala was almost enjoying a side of Varen she rarely saw. As opposed to the one reaching across the bag to cup her face and turn it toward her.
“I don’t want you to worry about anything,” she said, on the verge of using the growl that emerged during sex.
Ah, fuck. “Don’t worry about this note. Don’t worry about having to get second-hand-but-not-really clothes. I’ll take care of you, Nala. Say the word, and I’ll make sure you get it as soon as I can.”
Nala’s eyelashes fluttered, but it wasn’t in arousal – for once. “I’m PMSing, so you’re going to have to talk slowly… do you mean you’re gonna throw more money at me?”
Varen’s grip tightened. “Is that how you see it?”
“How else should I see it? You’re not really my girlfriend. I pretend to be your girlfriend for The Aviary. The sex is casual. You pay me so I can be available for The Aviary. Oh, and be presentable. You don’t have to do more than that.”
Something faltered in Varen’s eyes. She didn’t think I was her girlfriend, did she? “What if I want to do more than that?”
“Don’t.” Nala sank into the couch, crossing her arms and holding her tote bag close. Whatever walls she could build. “Don’t complicate this, Varen. I’m not your Nightingale right now. I’m Nala. The best you can get with Nala is a tenuous friendship.”
The look on Varen’s face said it all, even though her voice didn’t.
“You keep people at a distance, like I do. You’re afraid to open up to anyone out of fear of losing them like I am.”
Great. Like Nala needed a list of reasons they were the same.
Don’t make me start falling for you. Varen was already sexually attractive and available most of the time.
The last thing Nala wanted was lovey-dovey emotions on top of that…
if she was even capable of such a thing.
“All right,” Varen said, although her lips came dangerously close to Nala’s throat. “I bought you a pizza that one time, but all right.”
“Oh, nice. Buying me pizza means you get access to my pussy whenever you want, huh? That’s the kind of sugar baby I am, huh?”
Nala did not protest when Varen lightly kissed her skin, hand snaking beneath her tote bag and rubbing the outside of her thigh. Damn. Varen was too comfortable around her. They were having too much sex. It’s not like that. Nala needed to start drawing some lines, now.
But it was difficult when her body warmed to Varen’s touch and wanted nothing but affection. So few people gave it to her. Varen may not be Nala’s girlfriend, but she was real, and she was evidently attracted to Nala enough to want to fuck her every time they saw each other.
“Is it wrong of me?” Varen finally said, breath hot against Nala’s ear. “I told you, you do things to me that I haven’t felt in a long, long time. I’m not putting any labels on it. Excuse me if I want to pursue something that makes me feel like a fucking human being, though.”
Good for her, really. Grief had been hard on Varen.
Nala didn’t have to ask to figure out that she was one of the first healthy hookups Varen had since Desirée’s death.
But that wasn’t her job. It wasn’t even what she wanted.
Varen needed to find that sort of emotional relief elsewhere.
All Nala was good for was the physical kind.
“Stop,” she whispered before her body could come alive in lust and desire. Varen backed off. “It’s not a good idea.”
Her body protested. Um, of course it’s a good idea!
This woman is gonna fuck you if you give her the signal!
Hot sex. Eager sex. If Nala wanted, she could turn off her brain, turn off the negative thoughts constantly plaguing her, and go to a place where all that mattered was feeling good and getting off.
If she wasn’t careful, however, she could become addicted.
Like some people going through the grieving process became addicted to drink, drugs, and other destructive behavior, Nala could find herself on the path of relying too much on Varen’s worldly pleasures to help her escape reality.
And vice versa. She wasn’t deaf to Varen’s comments about how Nala was the first woman to make her feel sexually alive in a few years.
Don’t become addicted to me, and I won’t become addicted to you.
She was not Desirée, and that was who Varen chased.
What was Nala chasing? Don’t go there.
“I’m sorry.” Varen backed away, taking her touch with her. Nala hated to admit that she missed her already. This is what I mean, though.
Varen got up, returning to her desk, which she leaned against and used to keep herself upright. Someone needed to tell her to stop looking so good, so approachable. Granted, she didn’t look any different.
“Do you want to fuck me, Varen?”
She stood right before Nala, sucking in her breath. “Only if you want me to.”
“That’s not a real answer.” Nala opened her free hand, drawing lines around her thighs before lightly smacking Varen’s ass.
Varen gripped the desk, startled, but saying nothing.
“I’m asking if you want to fuck me. Every time you see me? Every time you think of me? Do you imagine ripping off my clothes and using me until you, I dunno, come?”
Varen chewed on the inside of her bottom lip. All that renewed energy had to go somewhere.
“Do you wanna fuck me in your office? You wanna show your sugar baby what’s what?”
Her lips parted enough to speak. “No comment.”