Varian Krylov (36 page)

over her shoulders, felt her shaking through that first, careful kiss. And the next, as he pressed her plump bottom lip between his lips, and as he let it go and took it again, taking a taste of her with his tongue. Under his hands, against his body, she shuddered, then kissed him back, seeking his mouth, parting her lips, softening against him, her hands holding him to her.

Vanka. She softened and sighed under his kiss. Every second he expected withdrawal, waited for her soft heat to chill and brittle. But she was hot and soft and welcoming and his want, his body went hotter and harder with every sigh, every touch of her lips, each brush of her tongue against his.

He stopped to look, and her expression was so vulnerable—her eyes turned up to him, her moss-green irises startling in contrast with the tear-pinked whites, all shimmering behind a veil of unspilled tears—his gut twinged.

But her soft lips were still parted, her fingers still curved at the back of his neck and the back of his arm. He feared the space between them, the seconds stretching since their kiss had ended.

He kissed her, still careful, at first. But her heavy breaths, her seeking mouth spurred his want past caution. He sank into her kiss, the feel of her jaw flexing against his fingers, her throat vibrating with a sigh now and then, thrilling him, a part of his brain forced into silence for months howling now.

She flinched back, pushed him back. Vanka. Her eyes turned up, redder and greener, spilling tears.

It was going to be all right. She was scared, but he'd love her. God, he'd love her, and it would be all right.

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He took her kiss, kissed until her whimpers were sighs, until she yielded to his mouth, pouring the urgent heat of his whole body into their kiss, until her sighs were sobs.

“Don't,” she said, turning away, into the corner, her voice so soft he barely heard her.

He caught her shoulders, made her face him.

“Don't,” she said again, meeting his eyes now, looking lost and sad. Far away, miles and miles of fear and pain between them.

He'd go after her. Get her. Bring her back.

He pinned her to the wall and took her kiss, sinking into her mouth, into the soft heat of her body. Pliant, yielding. Her mouth yielding to his, her breath racing with his.

There she was, there, sighing with him, giving herself to him in that hungry, tender kiss.

Quivering against him, her need answering his, her body hot and seeking. Trembling.

Shaking. Convulsing.

She sank against him, sank down, and he sank down with her, her hurt swallowing him, his sobs rising and spilling over. He held her tight to him, their tears wetting each others' faces.

“I'm sorry, Vanka. I'm sorry.”

* * * *

“What's going on?” Khalid asked in his low voice.

“I fucked up.”

“Yes?” Khalid perched on the edge of a chair.

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“I used to know what she needed.”

“Yes.”

“I don't know any more, Khalid.”

He'd cried so easily with Vanka. But it was something they never did, he and Khalid, not in front of each other. It embarrassed him. But he let his voice break over his words. “I don't know how to help her. And I don't know how to make her love me.”

“What have you done, Galen?”

“I pushed her. Too hard. I scared her. Hurt her.”

“Galen.” Khalid's voice made Galen's eyes snap up. “Tell me what you've done.”

“I didn't rape her, Khalid. But I scared her. She was afraid I was going to. God.

Fuck. She was so scared. So miserable. All I wanted . . .”

Fuck, he'd completely lost it. Khalid was standing there, watching him bawl his god damned eyes out, so he fought hard to reign himself in, but fuck, fuck, he was so fucking frustrated and scared and hated himself so much he couldn't stop.

A gentle warmth. Khalid folded him in, held him close, stroked his back and kissed his hair as he cried.

“There is nothing to do to make her love you. She loves you already. If she did not love you, she would have given herself to you weeks ago. You know this about Vanka; she hides herself from the people she loves, the people who love her.”

“Not from you.”

“Yes, from me. But differently. Our love is different. You know that, too.”

* * * *

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“It's my house, Dad,” she answered, her voice flat, quiet. “It's where I live.”

“Vanushka.” A tender reprimand.

“It's just better if I don't stay with Galen anymore. So now I'm home.”

“Why is it better?”

“Dad,” her voice cracked, and she fought to smooth it out again, “I can't talk to you about this.”

“Sure you can,Vanka.” Her dad took her hand and made her sit down beside him on the sofa. Cupped her face in his hands, kissed her forehead. “Vanushka,” he said gently, stroking her head, “I know you feel guilty, because you think, watching you go through this, I'm reliving your mom's illness. You try so hard to keep me safe, to never let me see you hurting, to never let me see you sick, tired. But I know, sweetheart, I know you're hurting. I know you're scared. And I know what you and Galen are going through.”

Her dad's face went blurry. She swallowed. Focused on breathing.

“I do worry. Of course I worry. But I would worry less if you would let me comfort you, now and then. If you'd talk to me. If you'd let me help you a little, if I can.”

“Dad,” she called up her voice of finality, the voice that always gave her the last word, when she wanted it. But her spine softened, her strength drained away. Her dad's arms went around her, cradling her the way they had when she was little. She cried and cried and he went on holding her, until she ran out of tears and she just felt exhausted and small. He let her out of his arms, and she grabbed a tissue, blotted her face dry, and blew her nose.

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“I just feel so guilty.” Her stinging eyes burned with fresh tears. “I don't know why I can't . . . I can't . . .”

“Make love to him?”

She nodded.

“Let him see you?”

She nodded again, tears sliding down her face. She mopped them up with the wet tissue she'd wadded in her fist.

“Are you scared he won't love you anymore, after he's seen how you look now?”

her dad asked gently.

“No.”

“Are you scared he won't be attracted to you anymore? That he won't want to be your lover?”

“No.”

“What are you scared of, Vanka?”

“I don't feel the same way about myself, now. I don't even know how to explain it.

I'm not ashamed. I don't feel ugly. But the way I was, who I was when we . . . when we fell in love, I'm not that person, now.”

“You're not in love with him anymore?”

“I am,” her voice broke on a sob. “So in love. Like I never knew it could be. I thought I loved David. I thought I loved Mark. But, god, Dad, the way I love Galen . . .”

“Yeah.” His pale blue eyes teared up. “You know,” he said after a long quiet,

“your mom's situation was very different from yours. We knew, really, that all her treatment, the most it could do was prolong her life, buy her a few years. And I'm so 346

grateful for those years. For every day, even the days near the very end. Mostly, those last couple weeks were so horrible, but even the day she died, we laughed. The way I never laughed with anyone, before her or after.”

He took a deep breath and seemed to harden himself. “But, after she had her mastectomy, she never let me make love to her again. And it still makes me sad, makes me angry, that she bought us those years together with all that pain—the pain of her surgery, the awful weeks of chemo—but for all those years, we never got to love each other that way. Naked to each other, holding each other.

“I used to hate myself for that, you know. I felt guilty, like I thought of her like a concubine who owed me sex, or something. But that's not it.

“It's that, your mom and I had shared something; making love was part of how we loved each other. And she let that surgery kill off that part of our love for each other.

There's a part of me that will never really forgive her for that. Not just for my sake, but because it hurt her, the way you're hurting now. Those last four years, she could have been happier. And she didn't trust our love enough, didn't give me a chance to give her that.

“Look, sweetheart, it's going to be scary, the first time you make love again—“

He'd stopped short the moment she'd looked up and met his eyes. For a few seconds she watched him trying to work out her accidental confession.

“I'm going to go for a drive, Daddy.”

She gave him a kiss on the forehead and got out the door before the tears started again.

* * * *

Galen knocked on her front door, dread weighing him down, holding him back.

Disappointment washed away the dread. “Misha.”

“Hi Galen. Come in. Vanka's not here.”

”But she's been here? She's coming back?”

“Come on. Have a beer with me, Galen.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

They took their beers out back. The afternoon sun was low, staining the olive tree and the house in a palette of violent oranges and pinks.

“She's not angry with you.”

“No?” Galen searched Misha's face, trying to decide what she'd told him.

“She feels guilty.”

“She shouldn't.”

“Galen. Has all this got something to do with Khalid?”

Galen tried again to read something in Misha's pale blue eyes, hoping to hell he wasn't blushing. “Oh, Misha,” he laughed. “It's complicated.”

“Yeah, so I gather. Not that Vanka would tell me anything. But Sasha's told me a tall tale or two.”

Galen dug his fingers into his hair and let his head hang, gazing down at a line of ants zigzagging frenziedly along a crack in the concrete.

“Look, I didn't invite you in to dig around in your private business. I just know that Vanka's here when she'd rather be there, with you. And I feel pretty sure that's what you'd like, too.”

“Yes.”

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“And I know as well as anyone that Vanka can make it just about impossible to get close, if she's convinced someone's better off without her.”

“Yeah.”

“And,” Misha went on, his voice low, gentle, “I know how lonely it can be, when the woman you love, the woman who loves you, keeps herself from you because she's afraid when you see her, when you touch her, you won't love her anymore.”

The tears stinging Galen's eyes, blurring the line of ants, welled up and fell in dark spatters on the concrete.

“Even though your own want is just a part of it, even though what you care about most is making her feel good, making her feel loved, you can't talk to her about it, because you don't want to burden her with guilt.”

Sinking down between his knees Galen sobbed as quietly as he could, Misha's big, gentle hand rubbing a slow circle over his convulsing back.

“And if I understand the situation even a little,” Misha went on in his fatherly voice, “you can't talk to Khalid, because you don't want to make him feel guilty for the comfort he's giving Vanka.” After a quiet pause, still gently rubbing Galen's back, he added, “And because you're afraid of hurting Khalid, letting him see how painfully you need Vanka.”

Choked, crushed under a violent sea of feeling, too murky to even understand what had him angry and what had him sobbing, Galen finally caved in, let all his pain spill out.

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“I feel like such an asshole, so selfish, feeling left out, feeling jealous and hurt. It's what she needs, and I'm so glad, so thankful she can get that comfort, that joy at all, from anyone.

“But I miss her so much. I want her so much. And, god, I know it's selfish of me, but I wanted to be the one to show her she's beautiful, that she's loved. To bring her back. But they . . .”

“What?” Misha asked after a patient silence.

“Seriously, Misha. I can't.”

“Afraid you're going to shock me?”

“You're comfortable with me talking about my gay lover fucking your daughter?”

Galen's face went hot. Fuck. What a thing to lash out with.

“Well, I'd rather not see the home movies.”

Through his hurt Galen grinned at the irony of Misha's joke.

“But,” Misha went on, “I'm not the sort of man who thinks everyone should do things the same way. You and Khalid, you're good for Vanka. That's all I care about. So.

Out with it.”

Galen closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath.

“They both . . . they can forget to protect themselves with each other, because Khalid sees Vanka's hurt and forgets his own. And it's the same with her. She sees that she can give Khalid something he needs, something I can't really give. And that helps her forget the fear she feels when she's with me.

“And I'm glad. I'm glad for both of them, that they can do that for each other. It's not that I want to get in the way of that. But I'm scared. I'm so scared she's never going 350

to give herself to me again. She gave herself to me so completely before. I'd never felt that. The ways she trusted me. The way she needed me. And now, god, she can't even bear to kiss me.”

“I'm scared I'm losing her. I'm scared I'm losing both of them.”

Galen was cradled in Misha's big arms, like a child.

“Galen, Vanka loves you. It's because her love for you is so big that she's scared.

“I know it's hard. You're used to knowing what to do, you're good at giving people what they want, at controlling situations. Here, you might have to let go of the wheel, for once. She's making her way back to you, her own way, in her own time. Trust her to come back to you, Galen.”

* * * *

“Hi.”

“I want to come home.”

Galen pulled her inside, pulled her to him, held her tight against him. “Home.”

She'd never called the place they shared home before.

“Galen, I love you.” She'd never said that before, either. “I love you ridiculously,”

she laughed, mocking herself. “And I want you, so much it hurts to be near you. But I don't know how to be with you, right now.”