Mr. Insatiable (5 page)

He laughed and took a mouthful, welcoming the burn of the peaty malt into his stomach. Shifting the ice pack again, he moved it around to the underside of her ankle and rested her leg on top of it. Then he placed his hand on her cool skin.

She sighed and her head fell back until it met the wall with a bump. “It’s not something I can talk to you about, Kit. Much as I love you, there are some things I can’t discuss with you.”

He frowned then. “You can talk to me about anything, sweetheart.”

“Not this.”

“If you can’t talk to me, who can you talk to?”

She tilted her head to look at him. “I don’t know.”

“Can you talk to your mum?”

She looked at her glass. “Not really.”

“Lisette?”

“No.”

“Tris?”

She laughed. “God, no.”

“Then talk to me.”

She sipped her drink. “It’s personal.”

“Of course it’s personal or you’d have told me the first time I asked you. What is it about, sex?”

Her lips started to curve. “Maybe.”

He pointed to himself and then flicked out his hand. “I know everything there is to know. I’m a sex guru. Ask away.”

She laughed and shifted on the seat. She looked tired, but as he settled himself, waiting for her reply, she finally gave a long, resigned sigh. “Oh, all right. Well, I haven’t been with many guys.”

“Yeah, I know. Three, unless there are any one night stands I don’t know about.”

“No, Christopher, no one night stands.”

“Don’t full name me. You do that and I’ll leave you to hobble up the stairs on your own.”

She smiled, but her eyes were sad. She leaned her head on her hand, elbow propped on the windowsill, and studied him. “It’s...I’m not very good in bed.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I sincerely doubt that.”

She shrugged. “That’s not only my opinion.”

So at least one of her partners had told her that. Kit frowned.

They looked up as the last man in the bar got up and went out, leaving the two of them alone with the barman. “Are you waiting for us to go?” Kit called to him.

“No, we’re open until two,” the barman called back.

Kit looked at the clock–it read one thirty. “Can we have another couple of whiskies then?”

“Sure.”

Kit looked back at Enya, who watched him with her bright green eyes. She suddenly looked young. But she was only six years younger than him–they were twenty-one and twenty-seven, not ten and sixteen. And he wanted to help her. He stroked her ankle. “So what’s the problem?”

She shrugged again.

“Did you ask them what they like in bed? Ask them to show you what they wanted?”

“Yes...I have an idea what men like.” Her eyes twinkled for a moment. Then she looked down.

“So... Did they want to do things you didn’t like or felt uncomfortable doing? Because there’s nothing wrong with saying no to kinky stuff you don’t fancy. Everyone has their limits.”

For the first time, twin spots of red appeared on her cheekbones. “Kinky stuff?”

He shrugged. “You know. Handcuffs. Watching porn. Sex toys. Anal sex.”

“Kit!” She went completely scarlet.

“What?” He laughed. “That’s twice in one day you’ve blushed in front of me.”

“It’s technically another day now,” she protested.

“Even so. I’m surprised you still get embarrassed with me.”

“Well, come on. It’s not every day I talk about butt sex with my best friend.”

He grinned. “I think we should make a new rule that we talk about it every day.”

She pushed him with her foot and then winced. He winked at her and took another swallow of the whisky, finishing off the glass as the barman came up with their next round. “Drink up,” Kit told her. “You’re lagging.”

She finished off the whisky, wincing as she swallowed, and accepted the new one from the barman, who took their empty glasses back to the bar. Sliding down the seat, she waggled her foot, and Kit smiled and began to stroke it again.

“So,” he said, determined to get to the bottom of her problem. “It’s not kinky stuff that’s bothering you.”

“No.” She looked sad. “Just regular, run-of-the-mill sex.”

“Then...”

She sighed and rested her cheek on the glass. “I have difficulty...letting go.”

“Is that anything to do with...” He couldn’t think how to phrase it, and his voice tailed off.

She met his gaze. “The fact that I was raped?” Her voice was soft. “It’s okay, Kit. You can say it.”

Kit studied her for a moment and a wave of compassion and admiration swept over him. She’d come through the ordeal like an Amazon, determined even at the age of fifteen that she wasn’t going to let it define her. But he knew the experience must have affected her in ways that weren’t obvious. “Is that what the problem stems from?” he asked gently.

“Yes. I suppose. I want to have a good sex life–I
like
sex itself. Or the idea of it, anyway. But...when I actually get down to it with a guy, I find it difficult to relax, you know? To let go. I mean, it’s not like I’m lying there thinking about what happened before or anything, but I find I tense up automatically.”

“I would think that was perfectly normal, honey. Have you spoken to your counselor about it?”

“I don’t see her anymore. I didn’t feel like she was helping much.”

He turned toward her in the seat, her feet still in his lap. The ice pack was cold on his thighs, but he didn’t care. He wanted to help her sort this out. In spite of her supportive parents, her close friends and her partners, she clearly didn’t feel she could talk to anyone about it. “The guys you’ve been with... Were they sympathetic about it? Did they understand?”

“I didn’t tell them.” She circled the ice cubes in her glass. “I don’t tell anyone.”

He knew that at the time it happened, he and his parents were the only people outside her family who knew she’d been assaulted. But he’d assumed she’d told Lisette because they were such good friends, and it surprised him that none of her partners knew. “So Andy...”

“No. He doesn’t know.”

“Do you think it might have been better if you’d told him? That then he might have been more understanding?”

“Maybe. But...it worries me that once I tell a guy, he’s going to look at me differently, you know? Like I’m damaged goods.”

Kit frowned, remembering his father using the same phrase. “Who called you that?” he asked sharply.

“No one.” She shrugged. “That’s how I feel, though.” She pressed the glass to her temple and gave him a tired smile. “I think I’m broken.”

He studied her wordlessly. She’d always been so determined the event wasn’t going to affect her that he’d assumed she didn’t think about it much anymore. Rather than being afraid to go out at night or being wary of men, she’d always been outgoing and vivacious, full of life. He thought she’d dealt with it, put it behind her, and moved on. How stupid of him. Of
course
it had scarred her.

And that was what finally made up his mind.

She was looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t want it to be the first thing a guy thinks when he looks at me, Kit. It would be perfectly understandable, but I couldn’t bear it.”

“I know about it, and I swear it’s not the first thing I think about when I look at you.”

She gave him an unusually pathetic look. “It’s not?”

“No. The first think I think about is how big your tits are.”

She stared at him, and then they both burst out laughing. She took a large swallow of her drink and sighed loudly, sliding down in the seat a little more. “You’re good for me, Kit Kat,” she said, rolling her head on the wall to look at him.

He smiled and then pointed a finger at her. “I haven’t finished with you yet. I want more details.”

“Like what?”

He stroked higher up her leg. “Tell me what you like in bed.”

“Kit, goodness.”

“What? It’s a perfectly sensible question. Did they ever ask you?”

She blinked. “Not really. I only slept with Gary twice and Sean four or five so there wasn’t a lot of time for deep conversation.”

“And Andy?”

“With Andy it was more of a case of ‘let’s complete steps one through seven.’ Usually missing out two, three and four. And sometimes five and six.”

That made him angry, but he kept it down. She didn’t need to hear about his feelings toward her ex lovers. He hooked her gaze and held it. “Did they give you any orgasms?”

She flushed again, but didn’t look away, growing bolder as the whisky took hold. “Honestly? No.”

“Not once?” Her answer astonished him.

“Not once. I faked it every time.” She sighed. “After a while, I become conscious it’s not happening, and then I get worried about how long it’s taking, and then it’s
definitely
not going to happen, you know?”

He nodded, suspecting that she was far from being the only woman who had this sort of problem. “What about oral sex?” He tipped his head at her. “I’ve never met a woman who didn’t like that. Do you come when a guy goes down on you?”

She blushed beautifully. “I haven’t. Same problem. I can’t relax, and then I get worried about the fact that it’s taking too long, and when he starts sighing and fidgeting, it kind of kills the moment.”

He said nothing, frowning. He felt ashamed of his sex, angry that not only had she been assaulted, she’d never yet met a man decent enough to take the time to please her in bed. He wanted to strangle Andy. It didn’t matter that the guy hadn’t known about what she’d been through. In a way, it made it worse. He hadn’t even had the excuse of worrying that he’d hurt her or that she’d be thinking about the assault. It was plain laziness and selfishness, and that made him angry.

Something else was worrying him now, though. He’d never discussed the physical details of her attack–he wouldn’t have dreamed about asking her such an intimate question, but now he wondered if she’d suffered more than he’d realized physically. He reached out and held her hand. “Honey, when you’re on your own, are you able to pleasure yourself?”

That made the smile return to her lips. “Yes, Mr. Nosey. I can ‘pleasure myself,’ as you put it so nicely. And don’t raise your eyebrows like that–I’m not giving you details.” She sighed. “It’s not physical, Kit. Everything works fine. There are no problems in that area. It’s all up here.” She tapped her temple. “Sex is about relinquishing control, release, and trust. Or it should be, anyway. And I don’t seem to be able to open up enough to...well, you know.”

He leaned his head on his hand and studied her. If she pleasured herself, there was nothing seriously wrong physically, which meant she was right–it was a psychological problem. And perhaps that was something he
could
help with. “So maybe you should have sex with someone you trust. Someone you’ve known for a long time.” He waited for her eyes to lift up to his. “Know anyone who fits the bill?”

Her green eyes lit with a mixture of excitement and caution. “Kit... We can’t have sex!”

“No? You don’t find me sexually attractive?”

“Oh, ha ha. You know you’re hotter than lava.”

He grinned. “So...”

“Why would it be any different to being with Andy? He was a friend too.”

He snorted. “You’re comparing our friendship to what you had with that idiot? Come on, I’ve known you over ten years. You trust me, don’t you?”

She studied him. “You know I do.”

“Don’t you think that would make a difference?”

She frowned then. “I don’t want to lose you. You’re one of my best friends–the best male friend I have, apart from my brothers. I...I love you, Kit. I couldn’t bear to lose that.”

“I know. Me neither.” He swallowed the last mouthful of his whisky and leaned on his hand again. “So what if we agreed we’d just do it the once?”

Her lips curved, but she bit the bottom one, trying not to smile. “What do you mean?”

“Like an experiment. To see if it’s different for you with someone you’re friends with, someone you trust.”

Her lips parted, and he had a sudden memory of how they’d felt sticky beneath his own, and how eagerly she’d thrust her tongue into his mouth. He would have got a hard-on if he hadn’t had an icepack in his lap.

“But if it was no different,” she whispered, “I don’t think I could bear for you to be disappointed with me.”

He frowned then and reached out to cup her cheek. “You could never disappoint me, love. You’re gorgeous, beautiful, and brave.” He let his gaze rest on her lips, not missing how she inhaled when he did so. “And if I can’t give you an orgasm, Enya O’Donnell, I’ll be very,
very
surprised.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re sure of yourself,” she squeaked.

“I’m sure of
us
. I love you, and I think you love and trust me too. Honey, if I can’t get you to come, I don’t think anyone can.”

She’d gone scarlet again. But her eyes were filled with longing.