She’d always been good at putting herself in other people’s shoes. It was what she did professionally, of course, imagining how any given character would react emotionally to certain scenarios. But she’d been good at it when she was younger, too. It was how she’d always known how stressed out her brother was, as he attempted to maintain his good grades while working nearly full-time to keep them afloat. She’d been able to mold herself into the smallest, least objectionable person she could be in order not to add to his burdens.
“I do not have ‘cooties,’” she said, belatedly answering Cameron’s question while making air quotes with her fingers. “I do, however, have standards. Hang on; I’ll be right back.”
It took her maybe fifteen seconds, tops, to walk the two steps to the hallway linen closet and locate a set of matching sheets and pillowcases. And, okay, maybe another fifteen to stand there and catch her breath. Her house was small. The rooms in it were small. And Cameron was…not small. He was tall and muscular, and beyond that, he took up a lot of psychic space. She was starting to second-guess herself. Empathy was one thing, but her bed was just on the other side of the wall from the guest bed in the office. Now that she’d tasted his lips, felt his hands roaming over her body, how was she ever going to fall asleep knowing he was mere feet away from her?
She took a deep breath. She could hardly rescind the invitation. Nothing for it now but to push through.
She had only been gone those thirty seconds, but when she pushed back into the office, she saw that it had been thirty seconds too long. Because it had taken Cameron no time at all to open the top drawer of the small filing cabinet she kept next to her bed. She used the bottom drawer for actual files and the top drawer for—
“A fine collection of vibrators you’ve got here, Jane,” he drawled, the McConaughey coming on strong.
Her skin heated, but she refused to be embarrassed. Well, she was embarrassed, but she refused to cop to it. There was nothing wrong with having a “fine collection” of vibrators. It was a heck of a lot less problematic than having a collection of messy ex-boyfriends. And she didn’t have a current boyfriend around to take issue with them, so she was holding her head high. Even if it was steaming from how hot her cheeks were.
As she busied herself putting the fitted sheet on the bed, she pondered whether she should take the vibrators out of the room with her when she left. But then would he think she would be…using them that evening? No, better to play it cool. She unfurled the top sheet with a flick of her wrist.
This was the problem with spontaneity. Normally when she had guests over, she cleared out the “fine collection.” But when you invited your friend’s fiancé’s brother to spend the night on a whim after a discombobulating day in which you made out with your friend’s fiancé’s brother, it was possible for your Hitachi Magic Wand, your Love Egg, and your Jessica Rabbit to slip your mind.
Whatever. She was not embarrassed, right? “There’s nothing wrong with vibrators,” she said, wincing at the defensiveness that had crept into her tone. “Anyway,” she said, trying again, “I would hardly call three ‘a collection.’” Nope, still defensive. Ugh.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “No judgment here.”
Shock prompted her to jerk her gaze to his. She was sure he had been playing her, that when she found his blue-green eyes, they would be full of mockery. When she met his gaze, though, she was surprised to find it free of any ridicule. Instead there was just…heat?
She must have been looking at him funny, because he showed her his palms and said, “What?” His turn to be defensive. She tamped down a smile at the turned tables. “What’s not to love about a vibrator?” he added.
She shrugged and turned her attention to the pillowcases. “I had a boyfriend once who had a massive problem with them.” She’d always kind of assumed that most men would share Felix’s feelings on the matter. And she could kind of see it. It was hard for a mortal man to compete with Jessica’s “unique oscillating motion.”
He took the second pillowcase from her and started stuffing a pillow in it. “Well, he sounds like a fucking idiot.”
She did smile then, and she didn’t try to hide this one from him. “He was actually a big brainiac. Premed major when I met him. Now he’s a surgeon.”
“Really? Because to my mind, being threatened by something you can use to give your girl screaming orgasms doesn’t sound like a very smart move.”
“He was a member of Mensa,” she said, laughing, both because it was funny but also because she was thrown off kilter by the rush of arousal that his declaration had summoned. There was something about Cameron talking so matter-of-factly about giving a woman “screaming orgasms” that made her nether regions want to volunteer as tribute. And the way he’d said, “your girl.” Not “your girlfriend.” They should have been synonyms but somehow were not. And it was easy—too easy—to imagine him replacing the pronoun and saying, “my girl.” She squeezed her thighs together in an attempt to lock down the party that was starting between them.
“Oh, I see,” said Cameron, shaking out the duvet she handed him. “I’m getting a picture of this dude. Premed. Mensa. Threatened by a piece of pink silicone shaped like a bunny rabbit. He was clearly overcompensating for a huge insecurity complex.”
She laughed again. “You know, I think you might be right.” She hadn’t thought of it like that, but Felix was always making a point to explain things to her that didn’t need explaining, and he’d been really into proving his “stamina” in the bedroom, which for him meant pounding away at her for what felt like hours. When she’d finally worked up her courage to suggest they introduce a vibrator, he had lost his mind. Told her a real woman didn’t need battery-powered assistance. “Anyway,” she said, “I find vibrators very…efficient.”
“I do not disagree. Though there is something to be said for human touch, too, don’t you think?” Cameron asked, finishing the bed by smoothing the duvet over it. It was so strange to be standing here doing something so mundane as making a bed together while they were having this conversation. Talking about anything remotely sex related with Felix, outside of when they were actually having sex, had not been possible. And, sure, she talked about sex with the girls, but that usually just involved her having to defend her practice of preferring her “fine collection” to the “real thing.” Though, in their defense, they didn’t mean that in the way Felix had. They were always on her case about her stance against dating (Elise) and her stance against casual sex (Gia), but they weren’t mean about it. Wendy mostly left her alone, because one of Wendy’s many amazing best friend qualities was that she was profoundly nonjudgmental. And possibly also because she knew Jane well enough to know that even though she’d never admit it, Felix had thrown her for a total loop. God, when she thought of that night, their last together, where she’d finally gotten her courage up to suggest they move in together, and he’d shot her right down…well, the shame was as fresh as ever—both over the stinging rejection and over her own blindness. How had she spent six years with someone who didn’t satisfy her sexually and didn’t want to move toward anything more permanent than “dating”? Where had her self-respect been?
“I don’t know that there is that much to be said for the human touch,” she said, answering Cameron’s earlier question. But maybe she should have just agreed with him rather than answering it honestly, because now she was going to have to give him the same speech she always gave the girls. Or at least an abbreviated version. “I don’t really believe in the idea of ‘the one,’ you know? The notion that there’s one and only one perfect match for each person? I don’t think that’s true for me. I haven’t had a boyfriend for a really long time, and I haven’t missed it.”
“Well, if Mr. Bunny Hater was your last one, I don’t blame you. But you don’t have to be in a relationship with someone in order to, uh, avail yourself of human touch.”
She would have thought maybe he was propositioning her. The Cameron she’d met a couple days ago would have been. But the slight hesitancy in his speech and the total absence of any leering or eyebrow wagging suggested he wasn’t. So she decided to go with it. She was actually finding this conversation kind of…stimulating. “Yeah, well, I considered trying Tinder, but really, why would I?”
He shrugged, encouraging her to answer her own question.
“Because vibrators don’t give you sexually transmitted infections or pregnancy scares. They don’t ax-murder you. You don’t have to cuddle with them. They don’t treat you like a sex doll.” When you go out on a limb, they don’t break your heart.
“Hmm,” he said. “You don’t want to be treated like a sex doll, but you also don’t want to cuddle.”
It did sound a little contradictory, but she didn’t care. “It’s a fine line.”