Closer

by Kaia Bennett

  "Sorry I'm so late!" she said, wrapping her arms around his neck in a tight hug. "This fucking bitch at work, man – please explain to me why she just had to find the perfect lamp ten minutes before closing, because I don't fucking get it."

  "Well, you still cuss like a sailor," he quipped against her neck. "Glad to see some things never change."

  She giggled, sank deeper into his embrace, and he lifted her up, held her tightly against him. His moan of pleasure at feeling her pressed against him was muffled in her hair. That familiar, haunting smell of lilacs filled his nostrils and he breathed the comforting scent in deeply, storing it away like all the other things he loved about her.

  "It's alright, sweetheart," he whispered against her temple. "I'm just so glad to see you." He pulled away to look down at her, and his smile came out full force when he saw her eyes glittering in the light of the hallway, a smile to rival his own spreading her full lips.

  "It's good to see you too, babe. I missed you," she whispered, placing a kiss on his cheek before she dislodged from his embrace.

  She could probably hear the hunger in his voice and feel the heat coming off his body. Maybe she wanted to establish distance? At this point in their relationship, lying about the way he felt was beyond him. He was used to their familiarity, to lingering when he touched her. It was strange to be so open with her sometimes, but he couldn't imagine the effort it would take to pretend she didn't affect him.

  "I'm so sorry about being late," she said, turning to unlock her door and step inside. He followed her in, closing the door behind him. "I swear it won't take long for me to get ready. I just need to shower real quick, and change—"

  "What for? You look great in that." His hand gestured up and down at her body. She took off her coat and threw it over the couch. He smiled when he noticed her signature sheepishness at his compliment.

  "No way, dude. I was sweating running from the subway. And I'll be damned if I wear this for one more minute. I swear, twenty minutes! That's all I need." She hurried towards the bathroom.

  He watched her take the clips out of her hair while trying to simultaneously take off her heels and hop/sprint towards the bathroom. He licked his lips and smiled, eying her curvy frame. He caught the slightest inkling of skin on her chest while she unbuttoned her shirt and then the door closed and she disappeared from view. For fun he glanced at his watch and started a countdown. He had yet to meet a woman, including his modest mother, who could shower, change, and be ready to leave in anything under forty minutes. He took off his jacket, found a seat on the couch and flipped on the TV, settling in for the wait.

  Five minutes later, Gabriel heard a door open, the patter of feet, a thump, and then some liberal curses that signaled she was out of the bathroom and in her room rushing to change. He laughed at her klutziness and checked his watch.

  "Not bad," he muttered, making a somewhat surprised face. At this rate she'd be done in thirty-five minutes instead of forty.

  A few more minutes passed accompanied by the sound of frenzied movement, drawers opening, drawers slamming shut and then finally the thump to end all thumps. He could almost feel that one himself.

  "Oww! Son of a bitch!"

  Gabriel wiped a hand down his face with a laugh and stood, making his way towards her bedroom at a leisurely pace. It was so cute how hard she was trying to get ready for him, but it would be pointless if she had a fatal freak accident in the process. Her one bedroom apartment was too condensed a space for a clumsy girl like her not to run into something and fuck herself up before they could leave.

  He walked to the door, which was slightly ajar, and pushed it open. She didn't hear him and he paused in the doorway, looking down at her crouched on all fours, and then quietly leaned against the doorjamb to watch her. Her head was buried in her closet and she was tossing shoes behind her. His gaze caressed the soft skin of her back laid bare because she had yet to zip up her black dress and wasn't wearing a bra. The skirt was barely covering the curves of her ass, the hem dangerously high so that every time she bent over farther it revealed glimpses of the black lace boy shorts she was wearing. Her legs were long and silky looking, and his fingers flexed as he remembered just how silky they actually were. The tantalizing sight of her took a comical turn when he noticed she was wearing one black heel and the other foot was bare.

  "Fuck! Where the fuck is my fucking shoe?" she squealed from the dark cave that had swallowed up her shoe and refused to return it. She came up for air, sweeping a stray strand of hair that escaped her ponytail out of her face and seemed to think for a second about how to rectify this lost-shoe dilemma. She turned to pick through the pile strewn across her floor and immediately saw him watching her in the doorway. His arms were folded across his chest and his ankles were crossed as he took in every inch of her. He knew that look well, the one where she felt naked, braced for his dirty intentions. He scanned her body leisurely, hunger building in him and sitting heavy at the apex of his thighs. Then he scanned the shoe-covered floor.

  For a second he wondered if he should give into his desires, kick all those shoes aside and take her right there on the floor. Maybe it would quiet all the doubts running through his mind about her and the other guy. Then he observed the area near her bed with a smirk. He stepped into her room and she seemed to sink further onto her knees, waiting to see what he would do as he came closer to her. Always waiting for him to come closer, always ready for him…

  But he never made it over to her. Instead, he knelt at the foot of her bed and reached underneath to pull out her missing shoe.

  She burst into laughter and covered her face, shaking her head.

  "Looking for this?" he asked with a slight chuckle.

  "Oh, how could you tell?" she said with a snort, gesturing at her scattered shoe collection. "I'm such a ditz."

  "You know they have racks for shoes these days." He sat down on her bed, directly across from where she was kneeling. "I think how they work is... you put your shoes in them, and then you can avoid getting injured because you've hidden them from yourself."

  "Oh, ha, so funny," she deadpanned, tilting her head back and gripping her stomach in a pantomime of hearty laughter. "Give me the shoe, smartass." She held out her hand but he shook his head and motioned for her to come to him.

  She smiled at him and stood, hobbling with one high heel on. She stood before him with her eyebrows raised, looking down at him in anticipation at what he would make her do to procure her heel. He could see the question mark hanging over her head. She was starting to wonder if they were going to make it out of her apartment and so was he. He wanted to make her straddle his hips so she could sink her body onto his hot, hard length. He wanted to answer that unspoken question the way he always had: with a deep, penetrating kiss.

  She brought her hands to his shoulders, her fingers sliding against the soft fabric of his maroon shirt and the broad muscle underneath. He wanted to feel her fingertips on his bare skin, her nails digging into the flesh as she struggled to regain the sanity he stole from her every time they were together.

  She waited. He paused, thinking of the sound of that other guy’s voice on the line. Travis. Travis wasn’t her boyfriend, but could he be? Would she have been with Travis by now if she hadn’t been waiting for him? Always waiting…

  He lifted her leg, but instead of grabbing the other one and settling her on his lap, he slid the high heel onto her foot. Her knees wobbled, her hands gripping his shoulders tighter as his hand glided over the back of her ankle, up her calve, and then behind her knee while she set her foot down.

  He licked his lips as her fingers moved towards his neck, and he forced himself not to stare up at her with devious, relentless need. She traced the black cord of his necklace until she reached the rectangular silver pendant resting against the hollow of his throat. He felt a tremor vibrate through her in response to his own persistent touch. His fingers which were resting lightly against the back of her knee and he wanted so badly to let them t
ravel up her thigh, to dip between her legs. He wanted to see if her soft, hidden slit echoed the desire in her dark gaze when he finally looked up at her. But this time around, he had promised himself he would be more mature about things with her. She deserved better, he reminded himself. She was moving on like she was supposed to and he should be taking her lead, not leading her astray.

  "We better get going," he said suddenly. "We're gonna miss the show if we don't."

  She looked stunned for a moment, watching him with a quizzical stare as he turned his eyes away from hers and abandoned the feel of her skin. But, she recovered quickly. He saw out of the corner of his eye as she swallowed, smiled with a nod and stepped away. He stood and gently led her so she was turning around with her back facing him. He had to literally bite down on his lip to keep from stripping that dress off when she shivered at just the touch of his left hand on her hip. He used the other hand to tug up the zipper of her dress. He didn't draw out zipping her up as if he was trying to make the movement seductive, but he couldn’t help leaning in and whispering, "You look great," as he swept his fingers through the dark curled hair of her ponytail, the backs of them brushing against her neck and over her shoulder. Even his good intentions were corrupted by the way he snuck quick feels of her soft skin.

  He pushed away the impulse to make her stay here with him, to pull her back against him and wrap his arms around her body and she mercifully stepped away before he could change his mind. She turned around, staring up into his eyes. Then she smiled and gave him a little wink.

  "Only took me seventeen minutes. You thought I couldn't get ready in twenty, didn't ya?"

  He chuckled at that and pinched her cheek. Then he took her hand while she grabbed her purse, pulling them both out of the door and into the night ahead.

  ***

  It went better than he expected, and he was thankful he’d followed his gut and left the apartment. The first live band was great and she got to meet them after the show because Gabriel had played a few gigs with them at the same clubs. A few drinks and a good meal later, and it was as if he'd never been gone.

  The comfort and familiarity between them took center stage. As sexy as she was, as much as he wanted to run his tongue over her smooth brown skin, he was able to push that aside and just enjoy the same sweet girl he always loved talking to.

  “So,” Nicole said as she took a sip of her Rusty Nail, “has it really sunk in for you yet? You’ve finally made it.”

  He laughed and wiped a hand over his face. “We haven’t made anything yet. I was so excited to just hear the words ‘record deal’ that it didn’t hit me till later that this is just the first step.”

  Nicole frowned, but didn’t speak. She just waited for him to say more, to reveal more of his inner thoughts. Trusting him to do so had become her thing, and he’d surprised himself by being more and more open to sharing the sides of him that weren’t perfect, that were vulnerable and unsure. Baby steps here and there, but still, after a lifetime of having to be his number one advocate when it came to his music, it was nice to admit that he sometimes thought the worst.

  “What if they change their mind, you know? They have the rest of the week to do that. Nothing’s been signed yet, and even when we do sign, there’s no guarantee they’ll push our music like we need them to, that it will sell. A lot of shit can go down between now and when the record drops.”

  She nodded. “Get all that negativity shit out of your system. Just cough it all up and spit it out—”

  “That’s fucking gross, Nic…”

  They laughed but she continued, “No, I’m serious, man. That’s what you have to do, treat it like a cold. That’s not really how you feel, you’re just so used to struggling you’re having trouble admitting you’ve taken this big step. You didn’t come this far just to fail.”

  “I just get worried about what happens when we get in the studio,” he said. “You ever hear those horror stories about bands that put their blood, sweat, and tears into an album and it just sits on a shelf? They’re not allowed to put it out with another label either, it just gathers dust. Happens all the time, my dad made sure to tell me that when I told him about Phantom wanting to sign us.”

  Nicole spun her glass in her hands, condensation glistening on her skin. He was attacked with a visceral image of licking ice water off her, her moan echoing in his ear like a siren song.

  “So, let’s say he’s right this one time in a long streak of wrong about you and your music,” Nicole said thoughtfully, pulling him out of fantasy and into reality. “What if everything you just said happens? Phantom changes their mind, or your first album sells just a million copies instead of a gazillion the way I predicted.” He laughed at that and took a swig of his beer. “If the worst that could happen is that it doesn’t work with Phantom, you go back to the drawing board and find someone else. There are other labels. Hell, these days you can put a record out yourself. Nuke could do that with his eyes closed.”

  He nodded in concession. “True.”

  “And you haven’t even scratched the surface of your song writing. You and Jonny have so many songs in you, and with Chase and Q in the mix,” she said referring to the lead singer, rhythm guitarist and bassist respectively, “you’ve got everything you need. Fool the World is the real fucking deal and your worst fears are just that right now. Fears. You haven’t let that stop you yet, so don’t start now.” She shrugged easily and drained her glass. “Granted, I’m just your number one fan and not an authority on the music business, but I doubt I’m wrong this time. Jackie’s been rubbing off on me, I dunno.”

  His light chuckle belied the intensity of what he was feeling for Nicole in that moment. The way she put him at ease, the faith she had in him when he doubted himself. He was dying to fucking kiss her. His lips literally tingled with the desire to do so and he gripped his beer bottle to ground him, took a long swig to distract himself. Which was getting harder to do because she was three drinks in and staring at him with blatant desire. This was the look she got when she was sure they were going to fuck. He wasn’t just doubting his fledgling music career tonight. He was doubting whether or not he was holding her back from experiencing the kind of relationship he wished he could give her in moments like this.

  He really wanted to ask her about this Travis guy, but sex was the one thing they didn't really discuss. They’d long since agreed they would keep up to date on STD tests, and that if there weren’t any issues with that or with her birth control they could go without condoms. Aside from that, it was just a given now that when they met up something sexual was going to happen. All he had to do was give her a look and she always responded, no questions asked. He found himself pushing her more and more every time they got together, coming dangerously close to crossing lines he never thought he’d get to cross with her. His balls ached just thinking about everything he wanted to do to her, everything he wanted to do to make her scream.

  And then that fucking guy’s voice popped into his head, a deep voice, gravelly from being woken up in her bed.

  Now when she returned his lingering looks, or caressed his fingers, he found himself pulling away and putting up a barrier. They were friends, great friends, with something deeper under the surface they indulged whenever they could. But now he was starting to wonder if even that had changed. Everything else had for them. What if this was just a force of habit for her, a bad habit she couldn’t let go of because he was too selfish to let her? What if he didn’t have the willpower to stop himself now that there was the possibility of him staying put for a while?

  Gabriel could tell Nicole didn't know what to make of things with him. Usually, by this point in the night they would have already started making out or alluded to being alone later. It just became a natural sequence of events after they laid eyes on each other. All of the time apart would raise the heat between them until they somehow found themselves sweaty and exhausted from fucking the night away. But tonight he hadn't so much as kissed her. That was h
ard enough, but when she leaned in to whisper in his ear that she was ready to go, when her lips brushed just a little longer than necessary against his ear lobe and her fingers stroked seductively over his thigh, he found it damn near impossible to breathe. The only thing that kept him in line was reminding himself she was seeing someone else now, and maybe that was his cue to cut ties and let her have some sense of normalcy. If he could behave himself and be the adult, she would take his lead.

  When they finally made it to her door, he felt like he was on his first date with her, both anticipating and dreading the possibility of a goodnight kiss. Should he kiss her? Should he hold back? She was talking about how much fun she had when she turned to him. There was silence for a moment, weighty and filled with her intent. She leaned against the door and stared up into his eyes with a soft smile on her lips. Her hand reached out and she laced her smaller fingers through his, trying to pull him closer to her. He started to move, to lean into the kiss waiting for him, but he stopped at the last minute. He didn't want to bring it up, he wanted to give in and give her what they both wanted. But the thoughts swimming through his head weren't that easy to shut off. He didn't think he could let this go any further until he figured out what was going on with her.

  He inhaled, ignored the look of trepidation on her face and said, "That guy you were with when I called." He watched her look away from him, obviously uncomfortable. "What's the deal with him?"

  "He's the reason you were so tense tonight," she replied quietly, releasing his hand.