21. Arden
21
ARDEN
There are no windows. The brick exterior boasts a sign for adult pleasures. Inside, the shelves are teeming with battery-operated boyfriends, replicas of penises, vibrating rings, jellies, lubes, and every flavor of edible massage oil under the sun.
There’s something for everyone here, including an aisle with a buzzing corn-on-the-cob vibrator, half a woman’s torso made of silicone, and . . . feet. Feet of all sizes and colors.
Gabe brandishes a pale plastic one. He mimes running the fake foot in front of his crotch. A blush creeps across my cheeks as he pretends to grind against it, then deepens as he fakes his orgasmic pleasure.
I grab the toy. “Stop. You are not getting it on with a plastic foot.”
“I wasn’t trying to get it on. I was trying to get off.”
I laugh as I set down the toy I’ll never buy.
Gabe scans the shelves, and his eyes light up. He points. “We have to go see that.” He grabs my hand and guides me to a bright rainbow braid.
I squint, studying the swath of colors. “Should I put that in my hair?”
He laughs, then speaks dryly. “Sure. Or someplace where the sun doesn’t shine.” He turns it around revealing a silver plug on the other end.
My blush shoots up fifty shades. “And this is why I need help. Because I actually thought—erroneously—that I could buy a rainbow braid for my hair here.”
“Look at it this way. You could start a line of butt plug hair extensions.”
“Yeah, that’s a hard no.” But I am curious about something, and since I have a living, breathing man in front of me, one who’s pretty damn open, I decide to ask him. I tug his shirt, pulling him closer as I drop my voice. “Would you ever want to use one?”
He straightens. “On myself? No fucking way. Now, if you wanted to use one . . . would it be my first choice? Not necessarily. But if you wanted to try butt stuff, I’d experiment with you.”
I don’t want to try butt stuff, yet something about his willingness intrigues me. “You would? Even if it’s not your thing?”
He shrugs happily. “Of course.”
“Why?”
He steps closer. “Because if we were together, my number one goal would be to make sure you were . . . satisfied .” That last word lingers on his tongue, almost like a reassurance. With him, I can’t imagine I’d be anything but immensely pleased.
I blink away the thought. I should not be thinking about how good sex with him might be. That’s not what this sex-ucation is about. I take a breath, survey the shelves, and spot a curve of raspberry silicone, like a stretched C. I raise a hand. “Okay, maybe this makes me a clueless idiot, but what is that?”
We walk over to what’s billed as a couple’s vibrator and study it closely. I can’t for the life of me figure out where each end of this double-ended device goes, or on whom. “How do you wear this? Who wears it?”
Gabe turns it on its side, showing me the instructions on the tag. My mouth parts in an O as I read. “The front of the sex toy hangs on the clitoris, and the rest of it goes inside the woman. Supposedly, it gives great G-spot orgasms while engaged in intercourse with a partner. But I don’t understand how I’m supposed to have this chunk of plastic in me while I’m having sex.”
“Double the pleasure, double the fun?”
“I think it’s daunting.” But then I remind myself of my mission—to speak up with men. “Do you think it’s too daunting?”
He regards the device. “I honestly have no idea, but I’d be game to try it.”
That’s what I’m learning about Gabe—he’s up for anything. That easy way he has seems to extend all the way to the bedroom. He appears to have no hang-ups, just a healthy appetite for experimentation if his partner wants to go into the lab and mix up new formulas for nookie. I’m sure he’d don his white coat and get it on right there beside the test tubes and beakers.
“Would you try it?” His gaze meets mine, and our eyes lock. A rush of sensation spreads down my chest, like fluttering tingles.
“I would try it. I don’t know if I’d like it, but I’d try it.” My breath comes a little faster.
“What kind of vibrator do you have?”
I smile. “Why do you assume I have one at all?”
He sets his hand on his belly and laughs in an over-the-top fashion. “That’s a good one.”
“I mean it. How did you know?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. I really want to know how you assumed I had one.”
He arches a brow. “Arden East, I bet you have more than one.”
I smile in a silent admission. I’m liking Naughty Town a lot.
“Exactly.” He steps closer. “And to answer how I knew—I knew because you like pleasure. Because you’re not getting what you want from your relationships. Because you asked me to help you learn more about men and sex. Ergo, you know how to take care of yourself, but you want to know what to do with all that desire when you’re with someone.”
His eyes sweep up and down my body, making my stomach flip unexpectedly, quickening my pulse. Maybe it’s the way he says desire . Maybe it’s how he looks at me with darkened eyes, or the close quarters we’ve found ourselves in. Whatever it is, all I want to do is give him the honest truth. My skin is buzzing, and it feels good to talk about sex.
“I have three. A bullet, a lipstick vibrator, and a dolphin.”
He swallows, taking his time speaking again. “Lucky dolphin.”
I laugh at the obvious joke. “Or maybe I’m the lucky girl.”
“Do you carry the lipstick one with you?”
“So I can diddle myself in my car?”
“Or behind the counter at the bookstore?”
“I am most decidedly not taking solo flights at work.”
“When do you break them out?”
“At home.”
“And which one do you use the most?”
“I like the dolphin best of all. He has most favored nation status.” Holy smokes. I’m serving it all up. I’m telling him everything. And it feels fantastic. It’s freeing. He seems to be enjoying this conversation too, judging from the hint of a smile tugging at his lips.
“Like I said, lucky dolphin,” he murmurs as he guides me to the next aisle, and we’re in a wonderland of animals: butterflies, dolphins, rabbits. “All right, this isn’t your first turn at the menagerie, then. But you did say you wanted to try mutual masturbation.”
A rush of heat zips through me, shooting my temperature higher. What is he going to suggest? Does he want us to do that even though I’d instigated a clothes-on rule? Nerves mix with a strange new excitement. “We don’t have to,” I quickly say, because I can’t bear the thought of crossing a line, even as it entices me.
He cuts me off, looking me straight in the eyes. “I know. Believe me, I know. But this is what I’m thinking. You’re trying to move beyond your comfort zone. Learn new things, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then I want you to do something for me.”
I’ve no idea what he wants me to do, but a delicious heaviness throbs between my legs, and I think I’ll like whatever he says. “Okay.”
“Tell me what you like about the one you’re using.”
“Tell you?”
“Yes.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
I look around. A skinny woman in black with earplugs works the counter, and a redhead in a plaid skirt is hanging up a sexy nurse costume. Nearby, a couple covered in ink checks out strap-ons.
“And how does this help?” I whisper as we regard a shelf of dolphins and rabbits.
“You said you wanted to be able to voice what you like in bed. Do you want to practice by telling me what you like about the dolphin?”
Sparks ripple across my skin at his request, leaving a trail of gooseflesh in their wake. I do want to tell him. I do want to say what I like.
I point to a light-blue dolphin, take a deep breath, and draw on desire—the desire to speak my mind with a man. I can do this. I can say this. “I like the dolphin because . . .” I pause. I’ve never been this vocal before. I picture my solo rides, how I close my eyes, lie back on my bed, and imagine trying new positions, exploring new lands, as I pleasure myself. “Because it goes deep. Because it feels good inside me, and outside.”
The blue in his eyes turns fiery. “The dolphin makes you feel like you’re being touched by someone who knows how to take care of your needs?”
I shiver, my knees going a little weak. My mind is turned all the way on. “Yes, like my lover is attuned to me.”
His voice is raspy. “And knows how to touch you just right. Knows how to make your skin tingle, how to move his hands over you so the world slips away.”
A quick breath falls from my lips, as my body becomes electric. “That sounds amazing,” I whisper.
His eyes are intense, shining with something that looks dangerously like pure lust. “Because he doesn’t take the gift of your body for granted. Because he asks, and you tell him. Now, tell me—so you can practice saying it—what do you picture when you’re close?”
The flame in his eyes jumps to me, and I’m ignited as I cycle through my go-tos then whisper, “My mind . . . flips through different images. But sometimes it’s words. Things I say, things I picture a lover doing to me.”
He inches closer, and the air crackles and hums between us. “Like what you want to say when you’re about to come?”
I nod, my temperature soaring from that one word— come . I ache everywhere. I ache between my legs with the delicious, torturous need to come. Not now, not here, but soon. “Things I’ve never said out loud,” I whisper, my face hot.
“Dirty, sexy words?”
“Yes.”
“What words?”
I glance around. The silence in the store is deafening. The pounding of my blood is intense. When I’ve gone sex toy shopping with my friends, I felt like a naughty schoolgirl, giggling and making jokes. Now, with a sexy man as my companion, I feel naughty in a whole new way.
A sexier way.
A seductive way.
It’s like he’s seducing me—unintentionally, I’m sure—with his dirty talk, but when he’s this close, uttering those words and smelling so masculine, so damn strong, I nearly groan out loud.
Still, I don’t want to go too far in the store. Some things are too private.
“You don’t want to say it here?”
I shake my head.
“I get that. I don’t want you to move beyond your comfort zone right now. But I have an idea. And it’ll help you with your exploration.”
“What is it?”
“Let’s get you a new rabbit. Something that goes deep, how you like it. Something that makes you feel like you’re being fucked by a man who wants you, and a man who knows how to please you.”
God, I think I might come from his words. That’s what I want. That’s what I need. I pick up a rabbit with more speeds than I’ve ever used. “This one.”
“I’ll buy it, then you report back to me.”
I flinch, surprised at his directions. “Do you want me to text you?”
“It’ll help you with your dirty talking. Try the rabbit, and then tell me how you felt.”
“Let you know what I say when I’m alone?” The fire roars, burning bright inside me.
“Isn’t that what you want? To be able to say those things in the heat of the moment?”
Desperately.
“Yes.”
“This is the first step.”
And I’m going to take it.