Katya glared at the table while she picked at the label on her beer bottle. It was all true, but that didn't mean Katya felt good about it. She was still hung up on the fact that sleeping with two men at once was … wrong. She felt like she was doing something bad. Wrong. Like she was a slut.
And why does thinking all those things get me so hot!? I'm broken. Liam cracked me, and Wulf broke me, right down the middle.
“Maybe I'll just go over it with him again, just to be sure,” Katya mumbled. Tori groaned.
“Why!? You're just gonna scare him away, Katya. You push people away! Just let him be your friend. Let him sexify you and turn you out, and then use those tricks to catch you a wolf, okay?”
“But I still feel like being with two men at the same time is -”
“Just stop it right now,” Tori's voice suddenly got serious, and she was pointing her finger in Katya's face. “When George Clooney or James Franco or whatever famous slutty dude wants to bang however many chicks, no one cares. But you sleep with two guys, who both say it's okay and give you approval to do so, and you still feel guilty. That's what's fucked with society. There is nothing wrong with what you're doing. You're not hurting anyone. You're actually making people feel good. Jesus, you're finally feeling good. If you honestly feel like it's wrong, then fine, stop. But if you like what's going on, you like sleeping with both of them, then fuck it. Ride this train for as long as you can, cause the only one who is going to stop it, is you.”
Katya stared at her friend for a couple moments. Tori was rarely ever serious. If anything, Katya was the level-headed “adult” between the two of them. Tori dated lots of men and slept around. Katya had never thought less of her because of it, but for whatever reason, she held herself to a different standard. Why? She shook her head and managed a laugh.
“I don't give you enough credit, I swear. You're beautiful and smart. I should listen to you more often,” she sighed.
“Duh. Oh, pasta!” Tori leapt out of her chair and hurried to the stove, stirring at the pot that was threatening to boil over.
“What about the garlic bread?” Katya asked, glancing at the loaf that was sitting on the counter.
“Oh, this fucking oven is broken again!” Tori growled, kicking at the front of the stove.
“Again?”
“Yeah! And I'm positive it's dead – you can't fix it this time.”
“I could try -”
“No,” Tori interrupted. “It's not your job to fix it. It's the management companies job to fix it, and have they ever? No. It's ridiculous. You're a fucking baker, and you can't bake in your own home.”
“I'll talk to Liam.”
“Good. Tell him how shitty they are about fixing stuff.”
They were silent for a while. Tori puttered around, straining the noodles and leaving the colander in the sink before moving onto the sauce. Katya stared at the broken stove for a while, mourning the scones she'd been planning to make. Then her mind went back to what they'd been talking about and she heaved a big sigh.
“Soooo … if you were me, you'd keep seeing them both?”
“Honey, if I were you, I wouldn't be sitting here right now. I'd be in the middle of a sexy-man-sandwich,” Tori snorted.
“Okay, that's definitely not happening for me.”
“Hey, don't knock it till you've tried it.”
“I like penis, but not that much.”
“I think this is good for you. I really, honestly do. I've never seen you so confident, so vibrant, so … happy. These men are good for you, so that tells me that whatever you're doing, it can't be bad.”
Tori's voice was soft, but there was weight behind it. She really meant what she was saying, and she wanted her friend to hear it. Katya smiled and got up, walking around the table so she could hug her friend from behind.
“You really are the best,” she sighed.
“I know. Now go set the table. After I dish us up, you are going to finally give me all the explicit details on naughty Mr. Sex Club Owner.”
9
“... what do you think?”
Wulfric Stone cocked his head to the side, eyeing a large piece of artwork. It was by some local artist. Up and coming, supposedly. The simple frame worked well with the minimalist style of the living room, but the artwork itself looked out of place. Heavy slashes of black across stark white. Nothing soft or gentle about it.
Since when do I like soft and gentle? Hmmm …
“Get rid of it. Something with blues. Blues and yellows. We're showing this house in two days, and I want it to be perfect.”
Normally Wulf didn't bother with the staging of homes, he left that to the designers and decorators. This particular house was worth a lot of money, though, and had been on the market for a long time – the owners had only recently switched to Wulf's agency. He wanted the home sold, and he wanted it sold yesterday.
Wulf's businesses, combined with the multiple properties he owned throughout California, made more than enough money that if he never wanted to work again, he didn't have to – he'd thought of retiring early plenty of times. But Wulf was a mover by nature. He hated being still. He always had to be in motion. Doing something, going somewhere. Making a deal, swimming a mile, solving a problem.
Swimming had been his passion in school, but then his parents had gotten divorced. It had gotten nasty, and though his mother had managed to hold onto the house, it hadn't necessarily been a good thing. It meant a lot of changes. She'd had to work for the first time in her life – and so had Wulf.
That's why he'd never pursued swimming as a career. Watching his mother struggle had killed something inside him. Had placed a solid, unbreachable wall between him and his father. He'd promised himself he'd never be stupid enough to jeopardize his own well-being, or his financial stability, for another human being. If his mother had been less concerned with “being in love” and more concerned with being able to take care of her family, she wouldn't have found herself in such a mess. What if it hadn't been divorce? What if his father had just died? His mother had never worked before the divorce. Had never even thought to save money for herself, to have an education so she could work, if ever there was a need.
Stupid. So stupid.
That would never happen to him. He'd concentrated on his grades in high school, and swimming had been his escape. His stress reliever. He got a full ride to Princeton because of his abilities in the pool. Graduated with honors because of his abilities in the classroom. As a present, his father had given him his first building – an expensive, historic, apartment building in downtown San Francisco, a property his dad had inherited and cherished.
Wulf immediately sold it. Fuck his father's legacy, he didn't want any ties to the man that weren't necessary. Wulf turned around and invested that money in more buildings, then even more. Thus The Stone Agency was born.