Good Karma (23 page)

Awareness connected him to her like a tether.
This was real. In that moment, all her doubts vanished. “Yes,” she
said quietly.

He gently pushed her hand away, curled his
fingers around hers once more, cleared his throat, and moved as
easily as the breeze as he pulled her back onto the trail.

He seemed to know her scrambled mind needed a
minute to collect itself, because they walked in silence for a
while. His hand felt good around hers. His fingers were thick and
strong, with smooth callouses at the bases. Probably from lifting
weights. She liked his warm, firm hands. They made her feel
secure.

What kind of life had Mark led? What of his
love life? He had hinted at his past, but they had never discussed
it. At least not beyond the superficial, surface stuff.

Mark’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he
retrieved it with his free hand then smiled at the screen.

“What?”

He shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Oh,
just a little surprise.”

The way he said it implied it was a surprise
for her. “What kind of surprise?”

He laughed. “One that will definitely turn
your face red.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes.
“Which I love, by the way. You’re such an obedient blusher.” He
tugged her toward the parking lot and picked up his pace. “Come on.
Let’s go.”

“Where?”

He paused, looking much too pleased with
himself. “When you get home, you’re going to have a couple of
packages waiting for you.”

“Packages? For me?”

He nodded. “Yes, but don’t open them until I
get there. Promise?” The wicked glint in his eye made her wonder
what exactly she had waiting on her doorstep.

* * *

After parking her car, Karma rushed inside
and up the stairs to her apartment. Just as Mark had promised, two
boxes sat outside her door. One from Amazon and one from a company
called Cārvāka.

Cārvāka?
She had never heard of
it.

She unlocked her door, carried the boxes
inside, and set them on the dining room table, where she studied
them as if doing so would somehow reveal their contents.

Amazon could be anything, but Cārvāka?

She tugged her tablet from her bag and set
out to see if she could get any hints from their website.

A chill zipped down her spine and her eyes
flew wide as soon as Cārvāka’s page loaded.

Sex toys. Mostly glass dildos. But they sold
other items, too.

What the hell was inside that box? Being that
she couldn’t open it until Mark arrived, all she could do was
stare. And not just stare, but S-T-A-R-E. As if the top would fly
open and an army of Chuckie dolls would burst out wielding tiny sex
toys instead of knives.

But then the fascination crept in, and she
turned back to the website. She had never played with sex toys,
never owned a vibrator or a dildo or…
anal beads
? She blinked
at the strand of beads that popped up on the rotating window on the
site’s home page.

Did Mark use this stuff? Better yet, did he
want
her
to use it?

With a rushed check of the time, she realized
she needed to get cleaned up. After taking a lightning-fast shower,
she briskly dried her hair and pulled it into a damp ponytail
before brushing on a bit of face powder and blush. She was just
whipping on a touch of mascara when a knock came at her door. She
shut off the bathroom light and dashed into the living room with a
furtive glance toward the mystery boxes.

“Hi,” she said, standing aside so he could
come in.

“Hi.” Mark kissed her cheek, catching her off
guard, and carried in a bag from Café Nine. His dark hair was still
damp, and he smelled faintly of Irish Spring, the same soap her dad
used. “Ah, there they are.” He spied the boxes. “You didn’t
peek?”

“No.” Technically, she hadn’t peeked. Just
investigated. But now she was more curious than ever about what he
had bought her. “Can you give me a hint?”

“Nope,” he said, sounding a little smug.

“You’re evil.”

“But it’s a good kind of evil, right?”

“I’ll tell you after you show me what’s in
the boxes.”

“You say that as if you already have some
idea.” He set the bag on the kitchen counter. Then he spied her
tablet and grinned. “Have you been researching?”

She picked at the groove in the molding
surrounding the entrance to the kitchen. “Maybe a little.”

“I’m not surprised. You’re resourceful. I’ve
noticed that about you.” He began unloading the food. “So, what did
you find out?”

“Not much.” She busied herself grabbing
glasses from the cabinet.

“You visited Cārvāka’s website, didn’t you?”
He laughed softly.

“Maybe.” She shrugged and grabbed the iced
tea from the fridge.

“So you know what they sell.”

“Maybe.”

The empty bag crinkled as he set it aside.
“Ah, but do you know what Cārvāka stands for?”

Other than being the name for an online
sex shop?
“No.”

“Cārvāka was an Indian hedonistic school of
thought. According to the Cārvākas, there was nothing wrong with
pleasure and sensual indulgence. They didn’t believe in an
afterlife and believed that pleasure should be the aim of
living.”

Well, that explained it.

“I see.” She poured their tea and avoided
making eye contact as she set the glasses on the counter beside
their food.

“Thank you,” he said, taking his glass and
sitting down before continuing. “Cārvāka is what I would refer to
as a provider of classy, high-end intimate items created
specifically for pleasure in all its pursuits. Some are even custom
made to order.”

She sat down next to him, her mind reeling.
She’d seen a documentary once about the sex industry. There were
companies that could mold a man’s erect penis and create a dildo
that replicated his member. Was Cārvāka one of those companies? Was
there a replica of Mark’s penis sitting on her dining room table
right now? Was that what he meant by “custom made to order”?

Not six feet away, God only knew what was
inside that box, waiting for her, ready to give her Cārvākian
pleasure. About a dozen competing thoughts splintered inside her
mind, making it hard to think and separate one from another.

Then she noticed that he’d brought her a
turkey artichoke panini and tomato bisque—her favorite—and all
other thoughts ceased. “How did you know I like this?” She turned
toward him as he was about to take a bite of his own sandwich.

Pausing, he lowered his panini and looked at
her. “I saw you eating it for lunch one day last week. Actually, I
had to make my best guess about the sandwich, but the soup was
pretty obvious.”

“You noticed? And remembered?” Once more, he
had surprised her. The men she knew didn’t notice such things, and
if they did, they certainly didn’t remember them.

“Of course I did.” He gave her one of his
patented crooked smiles, one that showed his single dimple. “A man
who is genuinely interested in a woman remembers what she likes. He
notices what she eats, what she reads, how she wears her hair.” He
smoothed his fingers over her hair. “He takes care of her. That’s
his job. Well, maybe not his job, but certainly his
responsibility.” He gestured toward her food. “Now eat.”

He takes care of her. That’s his job.
What an unusual yet refreshing perspective.

“Yes, sir,” she said dramatically, digging
in. “So bossy.”

“Sir?” His browed twitched. “We’ll see if
you’re still calling me that after you see what I got you.”

The boxes on the table practically flashed
like a beacon.
Blink…blink…blink.
It was a tad unnerving…and
yet utterly, undeniably exhilarating.

After eating, he helped her clean up then
gestured for her to have a seat at the table. “Do you have a
knife?”

She pointed to a small drawer under the dish
rack. “There’s a utility knife in there.”

He retrieved it and joined her. “Are you
ready?”

Her wide-eyed gaze swept from his face to the
boxes and back. With a nervous nod, she said, “As ready as I’ll
ever be.”

He sliced through the tape on both boxes and
flipped open the flaps. From Karma’s vantage point, she couldn’t
see the contents, and when she tried to sit up and peer inside,
Mark slid the boxes farther away.

“No peeking.”

Defeated, she dropped back into her chair
with a perturbed sigh.

He fished around, knocked what sounded like
books and smaller packages against the insides of the boxes,
smiled, made a contemplative noise or two, and then looked at her.
“Okay, before I begin, let me explain why I bought you these
things.”

Of course there was a reason. This was Mark,
and it was becoming clear that he had a reason for everything he
did.

“Talking to you over the past couple of
weeks, I’ve learned quite a bit about you.”

She nodded, remembering their encounter in
the parking garage and everything else they had discussed.
“Yes.”

“We don’t need to go into all of that, but my
concern is that…well…it’s been a while since you’ve been with a
man. I, uh…” He glanced down and pursed his lips as if choosing his
words carefully. “I don’t want to hurt you.” He met her gaze again.
“Do you understand?”

It took her a few seconds to catch his drift,
but then she drew in her breath. “Ooohh…uumm…” And there went her
blush response again.

He cleared his throat and glanced back inside
the box, his face red. This was only the second time she had seen
him blush, and goose bumps prickled her skin at the reminder that
Mark was only human and could be affected by what was happening
between them as much as she could. And she certainly received the
message he was sending without him having to spell it out. Some men
took pride and bragged about the size of their manly parts, but
Mark seemed more self-conscious—or maybe self-aware was a better
term—as if he knew that size could be a detriment. Too big and, as
he’d warned her, it could hurt.

She didn’t want it to hurt with Mark.

“Should I be scared?” She had felt him with
the sole of her foot and the palm of her hand, but only through his
clothes. She had never actually seen how big he was, so she didn’t
exactly know his full length and girth.

He grinned. “No, but we should be careful.
And you should prepare.” He lifted a brown leather case from the
Cārvāka box and set it on the table. It looked like an oversized
jewelry box, like the kind that holds expensive necklaces. “Have
you ever heard of dildo training?”

“No.”

He smoothed his palm over the top of the
case. “Well, it’s when a woman uses progressively larger dildos to
prepare for intercourse. That way, when she finally has sex, it
doesn’t hurt. Do you understand?”

“Uh-huh.” With that explanation, she had a
pretty good idea what was inside the case.

He reverently opened it as if he were
unveiling a sacred artifact. Inside, nestled in a black,
satin-lined pillow, were four glass dildos in graduating sizes. The
first was simple and slender, with a small tapered protrusion on
one end, a slight bulge about two-thirds down, and with a round
handle on the other end. The next was a thicker version of the
first, with two bulges and a heart-shaped handle. The third, which
was rose colored, was thicker still, with a large egg-shaped tip, a
shaft with rounded nodules along the exterior, and two large knobs
at the end to use as a handle. The fourth, a deeper shade of rose
than the third, was shaped like a penis, slightly curved, with a
bulbous head, a thick shaft, and ridges swirled candy cane style at
the other end.

“That’s about how big I am,” he said,
pointing to the fourth. He gave her an impish smile.

She could see his concern. Brian the wonder
stud had been nowhere near that big, and it had still hurt like
hell.

He closed the box and placed his hand over
hers. “You’ll start with the smallest and work your way up. I’ll
help you.”

Exactly what kind of help would he be?

The question must have shown in her
expression, because he smiled and held out his hand. She took it
and stood.

His arm immediately encircled her waist and
pulled her close as his lips brushed over hers.

Heat instantly bloomed between her legs.

He caressed her hips with both hands as he
kissed his way down to her neck.

She didn’t know what point he was trying to
make, but he could make it all night if he wanted to. He was damn
near melting her.

After several more seconds of his persuasive
lips on her skin, his tongue peeked out and licked a fiery trail up
to her ear. “Are you wet?” he whispered.

She could feel the slippery sensation in her
panties. “Y-Yes.”

“
That’s
how I plan on helping you.” He
pressed his lips against the tender place just under her ear. “When
you’re aroused, it’s easier to slide the dildos inside you. The
same way it makes it easier for a man to slide inside you.” He
paused, and his cheek rose as if he were grinning. “I plan on
making you very wet.”

“Oh.” Now she understood. She liked his
definition of help.

Pulling away, he guided her back into her
chair then reached back inside the box. The evidence of his own
arousal pressed against the seam of his jeans, and now Karma was
even more curious. If his penis was anything like that largest
dildo, it had to be pretty damn impressive.

When he pulled his hand out of the box, he
held another case, similar to the first, only much smaller. Small
enough to hold a bracelet.

“These are Ben Wa balls.” He popped open the
lid. The hinges crackled.

Inside were two metallic black balls that
looked like large marbles. He lifted one and let it roll in his
palm. Soft, musical chiming rang from inside.