Vibrizzio (The Big V #1)

by Nicki Elson

  Later that evening, Jessica supervised the gingerbread decorating while the other adults stood around the kitchen chatting and imbibing in the rum-laden eggnog Doug had bought while the ladies had browsed decorative candies.

  “You have a fun afternoon?” Lyssa asked her brother, not even trying to hide her smugness.

  “Why did you let me go there?” he asked. “I thought you were my wingman.”

  Karin approached from behind her husband. “Don’t worry, you’re not invited next time.”

  “Oh no, however will I get over it?” he teased, wrapping an arm around his wife’s waist and rubbing the tip of his nose against hers. Turning back to his sister, he said, “But seriously, don’t ever let me lose my head like that again.”

  “Not a problem.” She clinked her stout glass of nog against his.

  “No more candy, Ben!” Gabby scolded from across the kitchen, cutting through all other conversation.

  “It’s okay, honey. It’s second Christmas, so he can have a couple more gumdrops. They’re small,” Jess said.

  “But Aunt Lyssa gave us gobs of gateway candy in the fort,” Gabby explained.

  Doug raised a questioning eyebrow at his youngest sister, but Lyssa’s attention was drawn from him when Jessica turned around in her chair, asking, “Gateway candy?”

  “Oh, it’s a cute candy shop in my neighborhood,” Lyssa lied, giving an airy swish with her free hand. “I just gave them a few sticks of gum. Sugar-free. I hope that’s okay.” She slid her eyes to Gabby and opened them wide for a second, attempting a subtle warning—when was she going to learn she wasn’t any good at that?

  “You’re not encouraging my daughter to keep secrets from her mother, are you?” Jessica asked, shedding all hint of playfulness.

  Lyssa opened her mouth, at first to defend herself but then decided to be an adult. “I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you before giving them candy. And since I’m coming clean, I should also let you know that once Benny’s of age, he and I are going to run off and elope.”

  Now it was Jessica opening her mouth and pausing. But instead of continuing the inane conversation, she exhaled and shook her head, turning her focus back to the gingerbread house.

  The evening progressed, and with eggnog coating her digestive organs, Lyssa looked around at her family while they watched the movie. Doug snuggled up with his adoring wife on the oversized easy chair while Jessica and Sam lounged on the floor with their children lovingly nestled around them. Even her dad had his arm slung comfortably over her mom’s shoulder as they sat close to each other on the sofa. Lyssa hadn’t been lying to Gabby earlier when she’d said she was happy, but times like this made it difficult to not wonder if she could be even happier with a husband and children … someday.

  Mentally shaking herself, she realized she already had the best of both worlds. She had family all around her, who, despite their differences, loved her, and she loved them. Plus, she had her friends and coworkers to fulfill her need to be appreciated and accepted. And, of course, she had Vibrizzio to take care of those needs not fulfilled by others. She also had the benefit of being single and not having to deal with the day-to-day irritations that came with marriage and children. Everything was perfect the way it was.

  After the movie ended, she puttered down the hallway with Doug and Karin, saying good night as they walked hand-in-hand into their room while she went into hers. Alone. She changed into her pajamas, and she noticed a stray piece of wrapping from Hayden’s gift when she pulled the covers back. She sat down on the bed and held it to her nose, inhaling. Closing her eyes, she laid back and breathed in again as the eggnog sloshed into her brain. The wrapping simply smelled like paper, but she tried to detect a whiff of Hayden’s cologne, of him.

  She thought of his sure hands on her as he had spun her around the dance floor at the museum. She pictured his smile and replayed his smooth voice telling her she looked pretty in a dress. The memory of his mouth on hers rushed at her. He was such a good kisser. Amazing, really …

  In the next second, she was off the bed, crumpling the scrap of paper and dropping it to the floor as she went to her case of toiletries and retrieved her vibrator. She hadn’t been sure she’d partake while staying at her parents’ house, but three days without was a longer span than she’d gone in a while, and she wasn’t trying to be a hero. She needed this. If it ended up being a marathon session, she’d have Hayden’s gift to keep the party going.

  Back in the bed, she flicked through the faces of the usual celebrity suspects as she rubbed the trembling gadget over herself, but her mind wandered away from all of them. Had she opened her mouth first or had Hayden? She wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter once they’d fully tasted each other. Their mutual hunger had taken over and they’d moved together. Vibrizzio was now inside her; she’d slipped him in without thinking about it.

  “Hayden,” she whispered into the empty room. She didn’t want to push him from her mind again. When she thought about it, her self-imposed rule shouldn’t apply to him because it had been put in place to discourage hope. The hope of anything romantic with Hayden was already dead, so it was perfectly safe to indulge.

  She slid the device in further, rocking her hips. Hayden had her pushed up against a wall of the museum, behind a display of ancient pottery. Earlier that day, he’d ordered her to not wear any panties, and now he ran his hand up the back of her bare thigh to verify her obedience.

  “Good girl,” he murmured, and then bit down at the base of her neck, sucking and chewing as his hand maneuvered to her front, his thumb gliding along her, stopping to pulse at her most sensitive point. Twisting his fingers, he slipped them deep inside while his mouth calmed to tickling baby kisses up the side of her throat until his lips were at her ear. “Such a good girl.”

  She should stop. This was a bad idea. How would she look at him straight when they were both back in Illinois? His unoccupied hand slid around her back and pulled down her zipper as his mouth moved to hers. He was hot and wet and demanding. Just one night … a Christmas gift to herself … one carefree night with Delicious Hayden. She flashed to both of them completely naked. She was perched on the back of the maneless lion Mfuwe with Hayden bent over her, his face buried in her folds, his tongue surging and expertly molding her into a mass of unadulterated pleasure. It didn’t mean anything. It was only fantasy.

  Now she stood among Egyptian treasures with some of the ancient jewelry adorning her. Gold and turquoise cuffs wrapped around her wrists, held high in the air while Hayden gripped her hips, pressing into her from behind. A thick collar of beads and golden falcons hung from her neck, ending just above her buoyant breasts. His sure hands cupped the supple mounds of flesh, kneading them. She twisted her neck so their tongues could dance together, mimicking the slippery movement of the slender asp that encircled her waist …

  … They were in the main hall, on a giant elephant, her back pressed against its rough, arched neck. Her legs formed a perfect V as they pointed into the air, and Hayden lay on top of her, driving himself ever more forcefully into her until he cried out in ecstasy. She exploded and shook all around him, screaming along with him in her mind, though it came out as a muted whimper in real life.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “We’ll make our recommendations to the client in March,” Hayden explained as he pumped fists with a small team of investment managers in Baltimore.

  He’d sprouted a light beard during the ski trip and had kept it perfectly trimmed to just a hair longer than whiskers. The look suited him. Lyssa liked the way the dark shadow over the bottom half of his face made the blue of his eyes seem even more brilliant, and her surprise over the change had helped mask any awkwardness she’d felt upon seeing him again after mentally ravaging him. By the time they left for Baltimore, ten days into the new year, she’d been able to set the fantasy aside as a fading, glorious memory that had nothing to do with her relationship with her business partner.

  “The board will have to
take a vote,” Hayden continued, “so it’ll be at least eight to ten weeks before anything is final.”

  “We appreciate you making the trip out here and considering us for this placement,” the firm’s founder said. “It’s an innovative concept, and we’d love the chance to prove ourselves to one of the big boys.”

  After making their exit and stepping out onto the sidewalk, Hayden pulled his wool collar up against the icy wind and nodded toward a coffee shop. “Want to stop in there?”

  “Sure.”

  Once inside, he told Lyssa to go ahead and place her order, saying he didn’t want anything.

  “Then why did you want to come in here?” she asked.

  “Sabine texted right before the meeting started and asked me to call her as soon as we were done. I didn’t want to do it from the street.” A small crease formed between his eyebrows.

  “What’s the scrunched face about?”

  “Nothing really. It’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever actually talked to her on the phone before.” His eyes darted around the crowded coffee shop, then he nodded toward the empty hall by the bathrooms. “That looks like the quietest spot.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll grab a coffee and a table, and you can join me when you’re done.” There was a queue at the counter, and by the time she got her latte and nabbed a small corner table as another customer was vacating it, she didn’t have long to wait before Hayden rejoined her.

  He didn’t say anything, only pulled a chair out and lowered into it, keeping his gaze fixed on the table. His expression was vague. If Lyssa were pressed to label it, she’d have called it mild amusement.

  “So how did it go?” she asked.

  Raising his eyes to hers, he lifted one side of his mouth in a crooked grin. “You know all that trouble you’ve been giving me about my stable of women? Well, looks like I wasn’t the only one diversifying.”

  Lyssa let the warm latte sit on her tongue and squinted at him. If he was saying what she thought he was saying … why was he smiling?

  He leaned forward with both elbows on the table. “She’s been seeing someone else, and apparently things are getting more serious with this other guy, so she cut me loose. Now who’s the philanderer?”

  She gulped down her mouthful. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “Nope.”

  “For a guy who just got dumped, you don’t seem very broken up about it.”

  He shrugged. “She’s just one woman.”

  “Gee, I wonder why she picked the other guy.”

  “Did you know about him?”

  Lyssa scanned her mind for any clues she may have overlooked but came up empty. “No. No idea at all.”

  Hayden sat back in his chair and tapped the fingertips of one hand at the edge of the table. “It’s possible she’s making him up, an excuse to end things. I think our little getaway was eye-opening for both of us. Your friend’s a bit of a princess—which is nice in small doses, but five days of it was too much. To be honest, I was planning to phase her out by Valentine’s Day, and her phone call has made things a whole lot easier.”

  Lyssa nodded, wondering if this was for real or false bravado—an attempt to hide his vulnerable side.

  “Almost done with that?” he asked, nodding toward her coffee. “I feel like something stronger. The hotel isn’t far; we could walk in that direction and stop in somewhere for a drink on the way. Want to?”

  She didn’t—it had been a long day, and she wanted to go back to her room and change into cozy clothes—but she figured he probably needed to talk more about the breakup, so she agreed. Half an hour later at a bar a few blocks closer to the hotel, they were starting in on their second round of beers, and he’d not yet made another mention of Sabine. All they’d talked about was the DH project. They’d interviewed several candidates for the wildcard pool by now and were hashing over their options.

  “I’m afraid we’ve got too many small growth managers,” Lyssa said.

  “Yeah, it feels counterintuitive, but we’re not concerned about style diversification for this segment of the fund. As much as we’re trying to identify strong managers, the reality is most of them aren’t going to work out—only a shining few will rise to the top and get moved into the main part of the fund. We don’t want to risk throwing out one of the few with long-term potential for the sake of diversification.”

  She nodded. “Has Shep made any progress with Lula?”

  “Not yet. She keeps canceling on him, but I think they have something set up for within the next couple of weeks.”

  “It’d be great to be able to include her.”

  “I know, but time’s ticking. We can only afford to spend so much time on a single manager, no matter how promising.”

  Nearly halfway through her second beer, Lyssa had a realization: she was guzzling the hops and barley to quiet the rumbling in her stomach. She’d proven to herself more than once that drinking her dinner rarely turned out well. “Do you think they have chicken wings or stuffed jalapenos or anything?”

  “Yeah, I could go for some food. I think I saw a menu up at the bar.” He hopped up to bring one back, and they ordered a few plates of appetizers. While they ate and continued to discuss business, the atmosphere of the bar gradually changed. People in business attire departed and were replaced by a younger crowd in slinkier clothing. The music went from mellow Michael Buble-esque thrumming to the hyper beat of dance-club music.

  When the volume of the music had risen so high that Lyssa asked “What?” three times in a row, Hayden shouted, “I think that’s our cue to leave!”

  She nodded, and they slung their coats over their arms and brought their empty dishes back to the bar like the bartender had asked them to. The bar was lined with people, so Hayden took Lyssa’s plate and suavely inserted himself between two women to reach the counter. The woman to his right snapped her head toward him when he inadvertently bumped her shoulder, but her scowl dissolved after she got a look at him.

  She was tall and thin with her bony curves hugged by a tight top and a butt-high skirt. Fluffy hair framed her painted face. She said something to Hayden that Lyssa couldn’t hear over the music, and whatever it was made him tilt his head back slightly and laugh. He turned fully toward the girl and said something back to her, inciting her to reach out and run her fingers over the lapel of his suit jacket before leaning in to talk directly into his ear.

  Lyssa took a step back, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. Her movement seemed to catch Hayden’s eye, and he nodded toward her, holding out his hand and motioning for her to come in close. She did, and he put his arm over her shoulder, half shouting, “This is my partner, Lyssa. We were just leaving, but it was nice to meet you.”

  The girl curved her shiny lips into a pout, and Lyssa told him, “You can stay if you want.” He tilted his head sideways and gave her an odd stare, she assumed to assess her sincerity, so she rose onto the balls of her feet, saying into his ear, “You’ve got an empty stall to fill, and she’s really pretty so … ”

  He smiled and slid his hand off her shoulder, leaving a cold empty space behind. Holding his hand out to the woman, he repeated, “Like I said, it was nice meeting you, but we’re leaving.”

  The woman didn’t take his hand. Instead, she lifted her elbow onto the bar and leaned back, scanning her falsely lashed eyes over Lyssa. “I think you should listen to him and stay,” she said loud enough for Lyssa to hear.

  “Him?” Hayden asked.

  The woman nudged the girl standing next to her, who must’ve been a friend. She turned and followed the woman’s gaze as it again scraped over Lyssa, who was in her typical pantsuit, hair twisted up in a tight bun, and most of her makeup probably worn off after the long day. “Ohhh, it’s a girl. I’m sorry, my mistake.”

  The other girl snickered.

  “Really?” Hayden pushed back from the bar. “Let me show you something.” He turned to Lyssa and took her wool winter coat from her arm. “Take off your suit jacket.�
��

  “What?” She thought she must’ve heard him wrong, but the look he gave her was dead serious, and though she had no idea why he’d made the request, she complied.

  Now standing in her sleeveless, high collared blouse, she watched him take her coat and jacket and hand them over to the girl. “Mind holding onto these for a moment?” He shrugged out of his jacket and gave it along with his overcoat to her friend. “Watch and learn, ladies.” He put his hand to the small of Lyssa’s back and steered her toward the dance floor.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “We’re going to show those witches what sexy is.”

  “We are? How?”

  “By dirty dancing, silly.”

  Lyssa pivoted on the ball of her foot only steps away from the dance floor, where a half-dozen couples gyrated to sultry, thumping rhythms. Placing a hand on his chest under the knot of his loosened tie, she said, “I don’t think so. Hall and Oates is really more my speed.”

  “Ehhh … ” He twisted his mouth and scrunched his eyes doubtfully, and she interpreted the gesture to mean she hadn’t been quite up to par even with that.

  “My point exactly.”

  “You need to relax.” He placed a hand on each of her hips and gently pushed her backward until she felt her heels click on the parquet squares. “Didn’t I do an excellent job of gliding you across the dance floor at the Christmas party?”

  “That was diff—rent.” Her voice skipped when he guided her hand from his chest to the thick, hard roundness of his shoulder and moved in close, pressing against her.

  Into her ear, he murmured, “Let the music flow through you and follow my lead. It’s just you and me out here. Close your eyes if you need to.”

  Shutting her eyes with him so close, thus giving that much more hold to her imagination, wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but he obviously wasn’t going to make it easy to escape this humiliation, so she let her lids flutter shut and focused on the vibration of the music. It shook her toes and traveled through her, settling in her chest and making it feel as if her heart pumped in time to the song. Inhaling, she caught Hayden’s scent. The musky spices and hint of sweetness filled her. With her senses distracted, her body began to move with the slow undulations of his firm body against hers.