Chapter 30
Oh, hell no.
In Nala’s seat, which was still clearly marked with her basket of books and half-consumed latte, was a sweet-looking brunette tossing her bob about as she batted her eyelashes at Varen.
The woman in question leaned back in her chair, hands folded on her stomach as she took in the woman’s words with a shit-eating grin. This piece of…
It was obvious that this strange woman was flirting with Varen.
Why? She was a good looking woman, but there were a lot of good looking people in that room.
Was she the only one who reeked of money?
Nala couldn’t tell. She didn’t know what money smelled like, outside of Varen’s expensive perfume.
The only thing she knew was that her Varen currently had some bubble-headed hussy flirting with her.
She knew it was flirting. The woman’s fake smile basically screamed for Varen to fuck her.
The way she kept touching Varen would have been hilarious if Nala weren’t somehow involved.
This was a mating ritual she often made fun of when witnessing it out in the wild.
Except now she was the doe being tossed out of the back of the hunter’s truck in favor of a bigger one. OH HELL NO.
Nala could only stare in disgust as this display went on.
First, the woman laughed at everything coming out of Varen’s mouth.
Then she went on to ask her about the books she was reading.
“Oh, I don’t know anything about this. Giggle. It seems like it takes someone soooo smart to do it. Giggle. Oh, you own your own company? Wow, that’s amazing! Giggle.”
Damnit, why did Varen have to mention she was a business owner?
Now that girl was a shark circling the lone survivor of a shipwreck.
She smelled that money on this attractive woman.
That was it. Nala couldn’t take it anymore.
“Hey, I’m back!” she said as peppy as possible, letting one hand snake down the front of Varen’s sweatshirt. That’s right, smile at me, playgirl! To be fair, Varen hadn’t been flirting back, but she also hadn’t shaken this woman. One strike against her already.
“Excuse us,” the woman said, so much snot dripping from her voice that Nala had half a mind to offer her a tissue. “We were talking.”
“Oh, I saw plenty of talking back there, but I hate to tell you that you’re in my seat.”
She looked Nala up and down, attempting to decide whether she was a worthy adversary. Try me. Nala knew how to tango with the best of them.
“You’re kidding, right?”
Nala glanced at Varen, who had one hand covering her mouth as she watched. Hope you’re enjoying this. She probably was.
“I’m not kidding. You’re trying my patience. Back off.”
The woman scooted back in her chair with a loud screech, leaping to her feet and dwarfing Nala by a few good inches. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Nala wasn’t intimidated by women taller than her. That would be ridiculous since almost every woman was taller than her. She waltzed up to her, coming up only to her mouth, and put hands on hips. You think I’m gonna back down? The woman was in for a sore surprise.
“I’m her girlfriend.”
Two pairs of brows went up. The woman’s in disbelief, and Varen’s in sheer curiosity. Nala’s, however, stayed planted where they belonged.
“Besides, trust me, honey,” Nala continued, curling her arm around Varen’s shoulders. “You wouldn’t be able to handle what she dishes out.”
“Excuse me but…”
Nala tipped her basket over, revealing one of two books about living the BDSM lifestyle. The woman glanced once before taking a visible step back, shrinking away as if she saw something dirty. Oh, yeah, baby.
“Don’t assume so much about a person…” The woman left, mumbling about how rude Nala was. Rude? Her? She was the one trying to snatch another girl’s Domme! I make it sound like she belongs to me. Didn’t she?
“That was, uh, special.” Varen lowered her hand and plucked the book Nala dumped out of the basket. “I didn’t know that I had a girlfriend.”
Nala sat in her seat. “I didn’t know that I had a flirty girlfriend.”
“Hey, now, she’s the one who came over here and chatted me up. If you think for two seconds that I found her interesting, then you have another think coming. She was incredibly boring. I don’t go for girls like that. Because they bore me.”
Nala nudged the book in her hand. “Ahem.”
“Yes, yes, she didn’t seem the type into this, either.”
“That’s right.”
Varen waggled her eyebrows as she handed the book back to her girlfriend. “But you totally do, Ms. Nazarov.”
“Ms. Lake, I will have to ask you to refrain from flirting right now. You are on probation after that event. Besides, there are children present. We can’t talk about those things until later.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I’ll never hear that very often. Nala had to admit it sounded pretty good. She doesn’t say ma’am a lot in her life, does she?
Although they couldn’t talk about those things, she could certainly read about them. Nala plopped her book open, taking care to avoid any pictures that may be too obscene for public consumption. Which was most of them. Including the ones displaying the implements and general tools of the BDSM trade.
I am in way over my head. She didn’t know what most of this stuff was.
Sex swings? Paddle benches? Latex body suits?
Was Varen into this stuff? She looked over at her, covertly, studying the profile of a woman nose-deep in Java code, whatever that was.
She looked so damn average like this, but Nala knew the truth.
Deep, deep in that genius mind was a woman who got off on being rough and domineering in bed.
She’s also really tender too. Two sides to the same woman.
Whichever one Nala needed the most could come out nearly on command. Who was really bossing who around?
Varen pulled a pad and pen from her pocket and started jotting down notes. No… lines of code. Formulas. If she had thought ahead, she probably would’ve brought a laptop to run her experiments. Meanwhile, Nala sat beside her, in awe that she could do these things so quickly.
Nala shoved aside the BDSM book. She tucked it beneath the cookbook and then bundled those in the basket so prying eyes couldn’t see. Instead, she snatched one of Varen’s coding books and flipped to the beginning, determined to make some sense of it.
Alas, she didn’t have her sister’s analytical and scientific brain. Also, alas, was the fact that this book was advanced enough to start with some heavy shit. It assumes I’m level four of this. Whatever level four is. Varen was level four. At least.
Sighing, Nala returned the book to Varen’s basket and picked one of her novels, instead.
She wasn’t two pages in when Varen leaned on her elbow and looked at her with a knot tangled in her visage. “Are you really my girlfriend now?”
Nala dropped her book in exasperation. “If you have to ask, then I guess I’m not.”
“You were jealous of that other woman, though.”
“Jealous? Ha! I knew she couldn’t handle you from the moment I saw how she was flirting. She wasn’t going to get that, though. So, I had to play up the jealous girlfriend to get her to buzz off. Did you have time for her?”
“Honestly? I was hoping you would get back in time to see her and get a bit roused by it.”
“Aroused?”
“I said roused. But aroused works too.”
“I don’t think so.” Nala was about as interested in that woman as she was interested in kissing one of the bearded hipster wonders wandering around the café. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it…” Varen nudged her. “Darling.”
Now it was Nala’s turn to lean on her elbow. “You can be such a ham sometimes.”
“Says the woman who is my girlfriend one moment and totally not the next.”
“Why? Do you want me to be your girlfriend?”
Varen continued to look at her, noncommittal. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
“Are you asking?”
“Pshaw.”
“Thought so.”
They went back to their separate worlds, Varen engrossed in her notes and Nala reading about a man who was trapped in the Siberian wilderness.
Yet her mind kept wandering. One moment she was staring at the spine of that BDSM book, and the next she glanced at Varen’s profile, wondering how deep the kink could get with her.
She didn’t think Varen was a lifestyler like Lucian and Robin. If anything, Varen was into “normal” relationships until bedtime. Even then, she had two speeds. Maybe three. The usual lovemaking, full-speed rough, and binding.
The spine appeared again. For some reason, her first thought wasn’t, “I wonder if she’s into sex swings,” but, “I wonder if she did those things with Desirée.”
She wanted to ask but knew that now was neither the time nor place. Varen was trying to enjoy her day off. To ask her such a thing would surely ruin it. Nala didn’t want to be responsible for that.
As the hour wound down, Varen suggested they take their purchases up front. Nala was happy to, deciding to keep the cookbook and put the BDSM books away. She also put the travel book away. Some of the novels followed her home, all thanks to Varen’s generous credit card.
She put her arm around Nala’s waist as they left like she always touched her whenever they went to The Aviary. At first, it made Nala uncomfortable. Then she realized she liked it. As if she were a bird riding high on her perch.
The car idled as they waited for traffic to let up enough to leave. Nala stared at her bag of books. “I had fun today,” she said. “I know there’s still dinner, but…”
“But what? The day is hardly over. The sun is only starting to go down now.”
“I know, but…”
“Buuuut?”
Nala knew she had to look her in the eye when she said it. That was about as easy as admitting what she wanted to say in the first place.
“I think I wanna be your girlfriend. Your real girlfriend.”
Varen’s gaze held hers, neither of them faltering. What is she thinking? No, she didn’t want to know. It was probably salacious. As salacious as her thoughts? Who knew anymore.
“Nala…” Varen glanced at the steering wheel then back at her, tongue punching the inside of her cheek. “If you’re my girlfriend, not every day is going to be like this. A lot of days, yeah, but most will be… different. You have to be able to handle that.”
A big enough gap passed. Varen decided to not pull out into traffic yet – she was still invested in how Nala would react.
She was prepared for that. So she put on the most serious face she could muster without looking too scary. Not easy. Not that she thought Varen was easily frightened. Let alone of her.
“I know. Don’t underestimate me, ma’am.”
She let that word sizzle off her tongue like an exquisite hiss.
It had the desired effect: Varen sat up to attention in her seat, her breathing heavier than it had been all day.
“I can take whatever you throw at me. In fact, I rather wish you would show me how wild you can get.”
She glanced out the window and saw a happy family pass by on the sidewalk. “Not here, obviously. At home.”
“Obviously.” Much to Nala’s surprise, Varen’s voice adopted that decadent depth. Whoa, slow down there underwear. It wasn’t time to get that wet yet.
“You would have to really try to freak me out.” Nala slipped her hand between Varen’s thighs. Varen watched that hand move toward her crotch, but when it got too close, plopped it back on Nala’s lap.
“Let’s get dinner,” Varen said, almost cheerfully. “I know the place.”
Nala had to force enthusiasm. “All right.”
Varen pulled out of their parking space and said nothing more on the subject.
Dinner was sushi and ice cream for dessert.
Although Nala knew how to use chopsticks, she wasn’t super great at it, requesting her new girlfriend to help her get the hang of sticking two pieces of wood between her fingers and making a go of feeding herself.
Luckily, Varen minded her complete lack of taste buds and kept the spicy and sour stuff away from her.
I’ll get her with this Russian cookbook.
It was big enough to be a weapon, anyway.
Varen drove them home after dinner. She parked in her space but did not move. This was a common occurrence, wasn’t it? What’s she gonna say now? Did Nala even wanna know?
“Wait here for ten minutes after I go in,” Varen said.
“When the time is up, I want you to go into the loft and kneel in the living room. Take off your sweatshirt and put your hands on your head. The moment you step into that room?”
Varen sent Nala a look that said she was not joking.
“You have to obey every single thing I say until the sun comes up again.”
Varen tossed her sunglasses onto her dash and opened her door.
“We’ll see if you can handle being my girlfriend. We’ll see if Nala and Nightingale really are different.”
She got out of the car and unlocked the door to the stairwell. Nala was left in her seat, absolutely gobsmacked.
Gobsmacked… and bristling with anticipation.
You asked for it, shithead. No matter how hard Varen was on her tonight, Nala was guaranteed to be even harder.
She fell into a fit of laughter while still sitting in the car.