Adrian leaned against the edge of his desk, facing me, his arms crossed.
“This is the truth,” he said, indicating his place with a jerk of his chin. “My family is broke. My father supported us with his art until Vietnam ruined his mind. He hasn’t painted since. Without his work, we’ve been living off my small pay from the football club and the sale of his remaining paintings. But the last was sold three months ago. There’s nothing left.”
I stood, my back pressed to the door. I felt he wanted to tell more, tell me everything and unburden himself. “Okay,” I said slowly.
“My father lives downstairs,” Adrian said. “The government-run home they put him in after he came back from the war was a nightmare, so I moved him here to keep an eye on him. My mother refuses to sell our house, so making it to Ligue 1 or 2 is how I fix everything. My dad gets the proper care he needs, and my mother and sister don’t become homeless.” He held up his hands. “There you go. Now you know the whole story.”
“That isn’t the whole story,” I said quietly and swallowed hard. “What about med school? What about your dream of helping people on a grand scale?”
“It doesn’t matter, Janey,” he said, his voice tight, like a band ready to snap. “I have to play.”
“But now you can’t. Not in the final.” I moved a step closer to him. “Did you red card yourself on purpose? To get out of the final? To try to get out of soccer?”
Adrian stared a moment, a thousand thoughts swimming in the dark blue of his eyes. Finally, he gave an angry, bitter laugh.
“That’s the fantastic irony, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter that I was carded. The scouts will come for me anyway. But the team can win without me, even though they don’t believe it.”
“They lost today,” I said in a small voice.
Adrian pressed his lips together. “Fantastique. Then I fucked everything up for…”
“For nothing?” I asked, my voice a whisper.
Adrian raised his eyes to meet mine. “Not for nothing.”
I swallowed hard, past my pounding heart. “Your mother told me you hit Olivier because he was talking about…me.”
Adrian glanced away, his hands gripping the edge of his desk. “You should go. I have nothing to offer.”
“I don’t want anything from you, Adrian,” I said, taking another step. “Nothing that can be bought, anyway.”
“No? Not an exposé on the footballer who’s secretly destitute, trying to keep his family afloat? Isn’t that why you’re here?”
I flinched, but took another step. Adrian’s harsh tone was only to protect himself and his family’s reputation…and I loved him all the more for it.
I think I might love him. God help me…
“No,” I said, moving closer, my lips trembling. I was right in front of him now, my body inches from his. “That’s not why I’m here.”
He gazed down at me, his hard defenses crumbling. His hand came up to brush a lock of hair from my face. “Then why?”
“For you.” I swallowed hard, tears stinging my eyes. “I came here to be with you.”
“I have nothing, Janey,” he said, his eyes full of longing. “Women want to be taken care of…”
“Not all women,” I said, leaning in to his space. “Not me. I want to work. I want to have a career. I want to make something of my life. And I think you do, too.” I let my arms go around his neck, my fingers tangling in his hair. “You’re a good man, Adrian. That’s what any woman wants. What I want. I want you…”
Without another word, his arms wrapped around me, hauling me to him, and his mouth crashed to mine. I parted my lips to take his kiss, my knees weakening as his tongue explored my mouth, demanding and urgent. With all the heavy secrets of his life no longer hidden, I knew he was kissing me with his truest self. All of him, all of his goodness was in that kiss, even as it quickly heated into something desperate with need.
Adrian’s hand slid up my back, to my hair, where he made a gentle fist that sent tingles of electricity shoot down my body. He angled my head to deepen the kiss, and held me closer, so that there was no distance between us.
I have everything.
The desperate lust I’d seen with Lucie and Thomas, and the deep emotion between Brigitte and Robert. I felt both from Adrian, and I moaned softly into his mouth.
“Janey…” Adrian broke our kiss with a gasp, like a man coming up for air. He laid kisses along my jaw, my neck, to the hollow of my collarbone. “I want you…”
“Yes,” I hissed in English, as he went lower, his mouth finding one hard nipple under my top. My fingers tangled in his hair as he nipped it through the material. His hand found my other breast, and I gasped as he rolled the ball of his thumb over that nipple too.
“I thought you didn’t like me,” he murmured against the material of my blouse.
“I do,” I whispered back, my fingers raking through his hair. “I always did. I’m just bad at flirting, remember?”
Adrian laughed and then kissed me so that I felt the smile on his lips. Then he lifted my blouse off altogether. I watched his eyes flare and darken with want, as he took in my small, bra-clad breasts. I wasted no time, but found the hem of his T-shirt and hauled it off of him.
“My God,” I whispered, my eyes drinking in the masculine perfection of his body. Planes of smooth skin over his pecs, the tight lines of his abs, and the narrow waist that made a perfect V. His erection strained at his pants, and I stared at that too, amazed at how badly I wanted all of him.
He pulled me to him, enveloping me in the strength of his muscles over warm skin—strength and heat and hard kisses that had the whole of his heart behind them.
“Janey,” he whispered, pulling back to hold my face in his hands. “I need you… Now. But I…don’t want to hurt you. I can go slow…”
“It’s okay,” I whispered back. “It’s not my first time. I wish it were.”
He held my gaze a moment longer, and I saw only myself reflected there. Then he kissed me hard, sweeping me up in the power of his want for me. My words had been the permission he’d needed, though I knew if I’d been a virgin, he would have done everything in his power to be gentle.
Our kissing began again, this time with urgency. Adrian spun me around and lifted me to set me on the edge of his desk. He kissed me harder, ravenously, pressing me back, yet holding me tight with strong arms.
I wrapped my legs around him but there was too much clothing between us. My jeans felt rough and coarse, when I wanted to feel his skin against mine. I stroked the hard length of him over his pants, as his hands went to the clasp of my bra in the back.
Still stroking him, I moaned at the touch of his hands on me, feeling their weight and bending again to put his mouth on one taut nipple. I gave him a squeeze and he answered with a groan and a bite that sent of flush of heat straight through the core of me. Finally, with a grunt of frustrated need, Adrian lifted me again and carried me to his bed.
I sank back on a clean bedspread that smelled of his cologne and green grass and him. Adrian lay over me, and the weight of him on my body was a new kind of ecstasy. Every muscle he had honed over the years in service to his sport was now mine; its magnificence and strength were all for me to touch and be touched. He propped himself on his elbows to kiss me, cradling my head in his hands even as our bodies below the waist strained for the other desperately.
“Janey, I have to… Now.”
I nodded mutely, and he sat up, kneeling on the bed beside me. He pulled my jeans off leaving me in only my panties.
“Please,” I whispered, not caring how desperate I sounded. I was desperate to have him, over me again and inside of me.
Adrian bent over me and trailed kisses between my breasts, down my stomach, below my navel, to the hem of my underwear.
I shook my head from side to side. “No, I can’t. It’s too much. It’ll be too much.”
“Have you ever?”
I shook my head no.
A sly gr
in spread over his lips. “Do you want to?”
I started to say I wasn’t sure, but my head was already bobbing yes.
He laughed a little. “But Janey,” his voice lowering, “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But I want everything. I want all of you. Please.”
“Thank God,” he said, grazing teeth along my skin. “I want this so much.”
He took my panties down to my knees, and tore them off. I shivered with longing and anticipation as he bent to me and licked the sensitive skin with a gentle flick of his tongue.
My hips jerked at the incredible sensation, and then lifted to offer myself to him without conscious thought.
“Oh my God, Adrian…”
“All mine, now…” he said. “I’m going to take care of you.”
Then he put his mouth on me in earnest. His tongue swirled then sucked until I was writhing, grasping at the headboard as Adrian brought me to a fast-rising swell of pleasure that crashed almost immediately, and left me shuddering and wanting more.
“Come here,” I moaned. “God, please...”
Adrian stripped naked and I stared at the size of him, my heart pounding. He lay over he me and my legs spread for him without me having to do a thing. I thought I’d be nervous—he was only my second—but everything about Adrian was different. Better. Perfect. I arched my back, my nails clawing into the flesh of his shoulder blades, to let him sink inside me.
“Jesus, Janey…” He growled against my neck. “So good. So perfect…”
He pressed slowly inside me until our hips were joined. I held him tight, arms and legs wrapped around him possessively. This man, this good man was mine; giving himself to me and I took all of him in every way.
He began to move slowly at first, but it was too much. The need between us was a desperate hunger that needed to be satiated immediately. We’d both been starving for each other, and now that we were here, we couldn’t get enough. Not enough touches, or kisses; I couldn’t get enough of him inside me—pulling back and sliding in as much as the tight knot of my legs at the small of his back would allow.
Finally, Adrian propped himself on his palms, arching himself over me, his thrusts so fast, I was delirious. English and French words fell out of my mouth: yes and more and his name. But especially yes. The word was a whisper, then a cry, then a scream as another swell of pleasure in me broke, this time a tidal wave. The crash was long and slow, meeting the shore of him as he ground his hips deeper into mine, shuddering hard and spilling his release inside of me.
Adrian collapsed on top of me, heavy and warm and perfect. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to the side so that we lay tangled up; arms and legs, and skin slick with sweat. Our breaths came hard in between kisses because we weren’t done kissing. In that moment, I didn’t think I would ever be done kissing Adrian. I didn’t want to kiss anyone else ever again.
It was too soon to be thinking thoughts like that, but the way Adrian looked at me when we finally came up for air let me think I wasn’t alone. He brushed the hair from my forehead and I traced the strong line of his jaw with one finger.
“Thank you for being here,” he said to me, his gravelly, bedroom voice sounding exactly as it was meant to be heard.
I smiled and kissed him gently. “Thank you for letting me in.”
13
Tomorrow Never Knows
Janey
Night fell outside Adrian’s small window. We lay tangled in one another, me lying over his chest, his hand lazily sliding up and down my bare back.
“You’re so warm,” I murmured, nuzzling his neck. “I’m not going to leave here ever, if that’s okay with you.”
His chest rumbled beneath mine with his gravelly voice. “I wasn’t planning on letting you go, so that works out.”
I grinned and propped my chin on my hand to look at him. “You are nothing like what I expected,” I said. “Nothing.”
“In a good way, I hope.”
“The best way.”
He raised a brow at me. “Don’t blow my cover.”
He was teasing but I answered him seriously. “I won’t. I won’t write a word for the article. I don’t care if Antoine fires me.”
Adrian’s chest rose and fell beneath me in a sigh. “I don’t know, Janey. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next.”
“You go to that symposium with the doctors Kouchner and Recamiér,” I said.
Adrian’s gaze turned to the darkness outside the window. “There will be scouts at the game. Even if I don’t play, I have to be there.” He laughed shortly. “The team will hate me. I don’t know if showing up will help them or hurt them, but I have to go.”
“If they can’t win without you, they don’t deserve to advance, right?” I said. “A team can’t survive on one player alone. That’s too much pressure on you.”
“It’s not true anyway,” Adrian said. “They have the skill to win without me but there’s a mental game, too. Their confidence is obviously shaken, and they played like shit.” He sighed again. “What a mess.”
“You need to live your life,” I said gently. “Become a doctor. Save the world. I know you can do it.” I lightly grazed circles on his chest with my fingernails. “But whatever you decide, I’ll support you.”
Adrian smiled faintly at me. “Thank you, Janey. I feel like I can breathe again, now that someone outside the family knows what’s happened. And you’re still here.”
“Of course I am. I’m not going anywhere. I’m pretty sure we already established that.”
He bent to kiss me, and when he pulled back he regarded me a moment in silence.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I want you to write the article.”
I blinked, lifted my head off my hand. “The whole story?”
He nodded. “All of it. About living here, med school, about what Vietnam did to my father…”
“But Adrian…”
“Leave out the particulars of my family’s finances,” he said. “For my mother’s sake. She couldn’t bear the humiliation. But everything else...”
My brows knit together. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure. It’s like confession that is long overdue.”
I nodded. “I’ll make sure I protect your mother, but I want to be honest about how you’re providing for them. More than anything, I want to write that.” I smiled. “It’s the angle.”
Adrian didn’t return my smile. “That’s not the angle. Vietnam is the angle. How war tears apart families and countries alike. It ended for France in ’54, and yet we’re still feeling it.”
“It hasn’t ended for America. It feels like it never will.”
Adrian nodded. “I want to be a doctor, Janey. Helping is the only thing that makes sense to me in the chaos.”
I craned forward to kiss him softly. “Go to the symposium. Promise?”
“We’ll see.” He took hold of my shoulders and hauled me up so that my body lay flush atop his, eliciting a squeal from me. “But that’s a week away. We have a little bit of time, no?”
I kissed him long and deep. “We have all night.”
The following morning, Adrian and I woke at dawn and disentangled ourselves with effort. My body felt heavy and drowsy after a night spent bringing each other to one soaring high after another, and then sinking into each other to recover; to talk and kiss and sleep a little.
We dressed and went to an outdoor market so that Adrian could buy his father some groceries. We bought baguette, cheese, fruit, vegetables, eggs, and a hot croque monsieur ham-and-cheese sandwich for his breakfast. As we were leaving the market, I spied a stall that sold homemade jarred preserves.
“His favorite flavor?” I asked, perusing the pretty jars.
“Strawberry,” Adrian said absently. His gaze flickered to the price on the sign. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to,” I said. “And I’d like to meet him. For re
al, I mean.”
Adrian looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. “I’d like that very much.”
We went back to the pension where the Algerian man I’d met yesterday was smoking a cigarette and reading an Arabic newspaper.
“Bonjour, M. Hamidi,” Adrian said. “How are you and Imane this morning?”
“Eh? Bien, bien,” the man said. He peered at me through his pungent cigarette smoke. “You are the American? From New York?”
“California,” I said, with a polite smile. “Why does everyone assume I’m from New York?” I asked Adrian as we made our way down the narrow hall on the first floor.
“I don’t know,” he said, stopping in front of #5. “When I look at you, I imagine what California must be like. I think of a beach or a tropical island under a blazing sun.”
“We’ve turned mushy already, haven’t we?” I said, laughing.
“Yes, we have.” Adrian kissed me softly, then his smile faltered. “Are you ready?”
I nodded. “I am.”
“My father is not violent, but he is quite unwell…”
I gave his hand not holding our groceries a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay.”
He smiled faintly and knocked on the door. “Papa? Are you up?”
The door flew open and I stepped back involuntarily. M. Rousseau stared at us with wild eyes, his hair askew from sleep and a loose coat hanging over his pajamas.
“You must go to Edouard,” he said. “Edouard has it. They have it!”
I saw Adrian try to smile reassuringly through a pained expression as he gently ushered his father inside. Victor’s place was the same as Adrian’s, only cluttered with papers and empty bottles. I knew without having to ask that Adrian probably took great pains to see that his father didn’t live in squalor.
“Who is Edouard, Papa? What does he have?” he asked calmly, as if he were accustomed to his father’s incoherent talk. He set down the bag of food on a table littered with papers, half-finished sketches, and the remains of last night’s dinner.
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