“Paul?”
It was too much. The hollowness threatened to swallow me, and I blinked hard. “Forget I said it.”
He didn’t answer, and I didn’t dare look at him. I wouldn’t have been able to read his expression anyway. I pulled my shirt off and dropped it on the floor, then my pants. I wanted to go to bed and have this day be over. I didn’t want to think about it anymore.
Stacey had always been the one who made the bed. It hadn’t been intact since she’d left. The covers were in a pile at the foot of the bed. Sorting them out now seemed like entirely too much work, so I lay down without them in my briefs and tried not to think about the ring in El’s hand, or what it had once represented.
“I take it you’re going to bed.”
“Yes.” Maybe when I woke up, I wouldn’t be such a failure.
He hesitated for a long time, then said, “Aren’t you afraid I’m going to hit on you?”
I closed my eyes and told myself the sting behind them was only a result of the alcohol. It had nothing to do with being rejected after making a fool of myself in public, in front of El. Of being rejected by El. By everyone in my goddamned life. “I can’t imagine you’re that desperate.”
He didn’t answer, but a second later, I felt the bed shift.
I opened my eyes to find him looming above me, straddling my legs, supporting himself above me on his left arm so he could look into my eyes. What I saw there made my breath catch in my throat.
“Is that what you think? That I’d have to be desperate to want you?”
His gaze was so intense, and I swore I could feel heat coming off his body. The chipmunk chattered desperately, but the alcohol made it seem very far away. A new voice, however, began to purr.
“I fail at everything,” I said, trying to put us back on more familiar ground.
He didn’t even blink. “No, you don’t.”
“I’m always second. I’m not the vet; I’m the vet’s secretary. I’m Stacey’s second choice. I’m even in second place in the damn Curb Appeal contest.”
He smiled. The gentle warmth in his eyes eased the ache in my chest, and if the chipmunk was still going, I couldn’t hear him anymore. “The only thing wrong with you is that you’re so sure there’s something wrong with you.”
I didn’t answer. I could only stare at him—his dark skin and his soft, full lips. I wondered if I dared touch him. Thinking about it made the pit of my belly ache in a gloriously sensual way. He still had his clothes on, and I suddenly wanted more than anything to change that. I thought about how it would feel to have the weight of his body on top of me, and the thought made me moan out loud.
He smiled. With his right hand, he touched my cheek. He brushed his thumb over my lips, and it woke something inside of me. Something that had been dormant for too long. It ignited the blood in my veins. It made me ache.
He touched my lips again with the ball of his thumb, and I whimpered.
“You’re pure, and sweet, and generous to a fault.”
I might have argued if I hadn’t been so focused on his caress and on the look in his eyes. He trailed his fingertips down my neck, over my collarbone, making my heart race. Slowly—so slowly—he moved his caress down the center of my chest.
“That day we had ice cream, you put that spoonful in my mouth, and all I could think was, ‘If I kissed him now, this is how he would taste.’” He kissed my jaw. “I was so close to kissing you then, but you wouldn’t have let me.” He kissed my neck. “You have no idea how much I want you.”
I didn’t understand how it could be true, but at that moment, I didn’t care. His touch felt so good. I was fully erect in my shorts. Not only that, I was already terrifyingly close to climax. I wasn’t sure how I’d gone from the verge of tears to the brink of orgasm so quickly, but I wanted nothing more than to see where he’d take me.
He stroked my stomach with his fingertips. “You have this amazing skin that’s so smooth and white. All I ever think about is touching it.” He leaned down and kissed my collarbone. “And tasting it.” With agonizing slowness, he moved his finger down my stomach. “You’re even softer than I imagined.”
I whimpered again, resisting the urge to arch my hips toward him. Somehow, the waiting was better. He circled my navel with his thumb. Trying to fight back the surge in my groin, I rode the waves until I had no choice but to give in to the overwhelming desire to push myself against him.
“You’re not second to anybody, Paul. Not in my mind. I think you’re beautiful, inside and out.”
He moved his hand lower, brushing at the waistband of my briefs, over my hipbone, tickling the sensitive spot where my thigh met my groin, and I shivered. It was the first kiss all over again, except this time it wasn’t pretend. It was real. Or at least it felt real, and I never, ever wanted it to stop. It was a fire burning inside me, each caress making me ache, each spot more sensitive than the last. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever experienced.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said hoarsely. “Not when you’re this drunk.”
No. Not this again. My eyes snapped open to look up into his, but the expression on his face killed my anger. God, his eyes. Dark and sultry and yet with a hint of reservation in them.
I gave up. “Please,” I whispered. “Oh God, El. Please.”
He cupped my erection in his hand, and I gasped. El smiled and winked at me. “Who’s desperate now?”
Desperate? God yes, I was desperate for him to give me more. He touched the head of my cock through my shorts. I cried out, and as I did, he kissed me, gently touching his tongue to mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down to me, chest to chest, his thigh pressed between my legs, kissing him as if I could somehow give up everything to him and become what he claimed to see.
He nuzzled against my lips, breaking our kiss. “I should make you wait until you’re sober—”
“No!”
“But you have no idea how hard it’s been to wait this long. I’ve thought about doing this a hundred times.” His warm hand moved on my cock, changing from a caress to a grip. “I feel like I’ve thought about nothing at all since we met except kissing you and tasting you and touching you and fucking you, or letting you fuck me—”
I moaned, knowing I couldn’t last more than another second. “El—”
He kissed me again, cutting off my voice, breaking my control.
One hard stroke.
Two.
That was all it took.
I came, gasping for air, clutching at him as if he were life itself. I forgot about the day, my failures, everything that had brought me to this place. There was only him, so strong and lean, the exotic taste of his mouth, the rough grip of his hand as he stroked me through my orgasm, his gentle kisses on my cheek and brow and jaw as I fought to catch my breath. The hardness of his erection in his jeans, pressed firmly against my thigh.
All at once I was aware of the fact that I’d simply lain there. That I’d come before he’d even undressed.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He smiled and kissed my nose. “Don’t be.”
The afterglow of my orgasm made me shiver and sigh. I felt limp and heavy and sated and unbelievably sleepy. Even the idea of waking up stuck to my shorts wasn’t enough to make me do more than settle in comfortably against his weight. He put his arms around me and sighed against my neck. “I hope you don’t hate me for this in the morning.”
I hated somebody in the morning, but it wasn’t Emanuel. It was whoever had invented the juice of the devil more commonly known as rum.
I woke around five, my head pounding and my stomach in turmoil. El wasn’t there, which was fine because I threw up for an hour, eventually giving up and sleeping on the bathroom floor between bouts so I didn’t have to move so far to get the job done. When I woke up at nine, the bathroom rug pattern impressed on my face, I finally emerged from the bathroom and collapsed back into bed.
At noon I woke to the beeping sound o
f my phone announcing a text. It was from El.
Hope you’re feeling okay this morning. Sorry I didn’t stick around but wasn’t sure if you’d want me there or not. I hope you don’t think I took advantage of you while you were drunk. Even though I did. Call if you want.
Another text followed. MoJo says hi and that she didn’t take advantage of you at all, so don’t take your disgust at me out on her.
I smiled again, though I bit the inside of my cheek at the same time, trying to quell the upset in my stomach that had nothing to do with too much rum. I felt like I should text back, but I didn’t know what to say. Telling myself I’d think of something later, I put the phone down and went to the kitchen to see what food I might be able to keep down.
Except as I searched through my cupboards, full of food instead of useless appliances, I remembered last night. Remembered the way El had smiled at me. The way he’d danced with me. I remembered his touch and the taste of his kiss and the wonderful feeling of being in his arms. I remembered the way he’d touched me and told me I was beautiful inside and out. I remembered feeling amazing. Cherished. Loved.
That feeling was tempered more than a little by the acknowledgment of what exactly I had done and with whom. Specifically, that the whom had been a man.
After my shower, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring into my own eyes. The chipmunk part of my brain was back on its wheel, chattering away about how it didn’t matter, how I had been drunk, how it was just messing around. Except that other voice wasn’t whispering in the back of my head now. It really wasn’t saying anything, but it wasn’t muted. It pushed the chipmunk further and further back, calling up memories older than the ones from the night before. Of kissing the neighbor boy, Dean. Of feeling my heart race when he’d breathed against my neck. Of catching sight of boys in the locker room and being turned on—and terrified.
Of being caught by Dean’s mom with his hand on my cock, of her screaming, of me begging her not to tell my mom. Of never seeing Dean again after that.
Of being tempted by guys at college but being rescued by Stacey and her willingness to direct my life. Of how the longer I was with Stacey, the less I thought about guys at all until I couldn’t even remember having ever liked them.
I stared at myself and had a strange sort of epiphany, or at least something that felt like one, a kind of companion to that unsettled sensation I’d had at El’s text, and just like then, I couldn’t put it into words. Because it wasn’t about words. It was about feelings. It was about wanting. About aching.
About needing.
The sensation carried me out of the house and into my car, which seemed to know it was supposed to go to Tucker Pawn, because that’s where I ended up. The shop was closed, but the feelings carried me around the side to a door which could only go up to his apartment.
It wasn’t until I heard MoJo barking excitedly and El cooing to her as he came down the stairs that I remembered I’d meant to call him, not show up unannounced on a Sunday afternoon. So when he opened the door, I was frozen in fear and mortification and the same emptiness I remembered through a rum haze when he’d told me he needed to take me home.
“Paul.” That was all he said, and he seemed surprised, but not exactly excited to see me. Wary, definitely.
I still couldn’t speak. I wanted him to smile, to tease me, because he always did. He wasn’t now, though. He just looked at me, guarded, unreadable. Unhelpful.
I think I’d arrived believing it would be some kind of movie moment where he’d sweep me into his arms and we’d kissed and everything would work out. The weird part was, I could feel that possibility lurking underneath us, except neither of us were willing to make that leap. Or maybe I was the only one wishing for cheesy violins. Maybe he was hoping I would buy a clue and go away.
He’d wanted me last night, though. That much I remembered. He’d wanted me this morning. But standing here now, looking at him with all his wariness, it was so easy to believe he’d come to his senses. Or that I’d already managed to screw everything up before I even had myself figured out.
It didn’t help that I still didn’t know what to say, what I felt, what I wanted. So with nothing else to offer, I said, “We need to talk.”
His expression the same, he nodded. “Probably so.” He opened the door.
Then he picked up MoJo and headed up the stairs.
I followed, forgetting I’d ever had a hangover and wishing like hell for a bottle of rum.
El fussed with MoJo as he led Paul into the apartment, trying not to let on how panicked he truly was.
He’d been bouncing off the walls ever since he’d sent the text, alternating between wearing holes in his floorboards and obsessively checking his phone to make sure the ringer was on, that the ringer still worked, that the phone worked, period, that it was loud enough for him to hear even in the bedroom if it rang, and most importantly of all, that Paul hadn’t called or texted him and he’d missed it.
Whether it was because Paul appearing at his door wasn’t part of his plan or because he’d appeared spouting the four most ominous words in the universe—we need to talk—El couldn’t say. Maybe it would have been this way on the phone, too. Maybe it had always been destined to head here. Maybe—actually, no maybe about it—he should never have opened this can of worms in the first place.
Except he knew all the way down to the soles of his shoes that he would do this all again in a heartbeat, even if Paul was about to kiss him good-bye. Without so much as a kiss.
Paul, he realized, still hadn’t said anything. Glancing over to check, El saw his guest holding up a wall near his small dining table at the edge of the room that was his cooking, living, and eating area. Paul looked as terrified as El felt, all but begging with his eyes to be let out of this conversation.
El let out a huff of air and swallowed a grimace. The hell he would coach Paul through cutting him loose. He plunked down on the corner of the couch and motioned for MoJo to jump up in his lap—a useless gesture, as she was already halfway there. “Have a seat. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
The only seats available were the recliner, which was practically to El’s back the way he was sitting, and the other end of the small couch he already occupied. It depressed the hell out of him when Paul chose to drag a chair over from the table. “I—I’m sorry. I know you said to call.”
“It’s fine.” El smiled, but it felt like something strange and constipated. He gave it up and focused on rubbing behind MoJo’s ears. “So. You said we need to talk.”
He could practically feel Paul’s discomfort radiating across the room. “I— Yes. I mean, don’t you? About last night? I—” He stammered a moment, and when El gave in and glanced up, Paul’s face, neck, and ears were red. “Or maybe you don’t. Maybe that was normal for you and no big deal.” Paul’s eyes weren’t closed, but they were focused so hard on a spot on the floor that El figured there’d likely be a hole by the end of the conversation. “It was a big deal for me.”
Hell. With a heavy sigh, El displaced MoJo and scooted forward on the couch, bracing his elbows against his knees. “It was for me too. Except it looks like it’s upset you, so I’m sorry. Like I said last night, you were drunk, and I knew better. I’m sorry.”
“No.” Paul’s gaze lifted quickly, urgently, then fell to the floor in a new wave of blushing. “I mean—” He began to worry his fingers, tugging at them and bending them into contortions that made El brace himself for the crack of bones. “I was drunk. Very drunk. But I think I remember everything. Including how you tried to get me home, and—” Now his eyes did fall shut, and the wind seemed to go out of him.
“I’m sorry,” El whispered, feeling shitty and helpless.
Paul laughed, a strange, tortured sound. “That’s . . . that’s just it. I don’t know that I am.”
The weight of dread over El froze and lifted slightly. “Oh?”
The fingers launched back into their contortions. “I’ve been thinking ab
out it all day. Trying to. Mostly I feel confused and panicked and something else I can’t figure out how to describe except that it’s why I ended up over here. I mean—I thought I was over this. I hadn’t thought about this. Not in a long, long time.”
“Thought about what?”
Paul was almost sweating. “Being—being—” Those fingers were never going to make it.
“Gay?” El finished for him.
Paul shook his head, then stopped as if he were confused. “Yes—well, I mean, I don’t know that I am. All the way, I mean. It’s not like I had to talk myself into sex with Stacey.”
El could do without hearing that woman’s name again, ever. Especially when attached to sex with Paul. “Well, Kinsey didn’t make his scale out of nothing.”
Paul nodded, blushing a little. “I mean, I’ve been with guys before. Well, one. Sort of. One guy, one girl. I guess it’s never been a big deal to me—I’ve always been attracted to both. But it’s easier to be with women.”
Biting back comments about how much hell Stacey had put Paul through, El held still and waited. Paul, however, merely hunched over himself, his breathing coming fast and shallow. El gave up and scooted all the way to the end of the couch, reaching for Paul but stopping short of touching his knee. “Paul.”
Paul plowed on. “Sometimes I wonder how much of being with Stacey was taking the easy way out. It seems stupid now, as stupid as everything else I’ve tried to do, pretending to be someone I’m not. I don’t even have some great reason, like my parents are religious zealots who protest gay funerals or something. Not even close. It just . . . it was never safe to be with men. And I didn’t hate girls. I never sat down and reasoned it out, but I think some part of me decided why make a fuss? Why make life hard?” His hands tightened into each other, his whole body tensing as his voice rose. “Now it’s all awake, all those old feelings I thought I’d put away. They’re all right here, and I don’t want to be this, don’t want the complicated way, but I don’t want to say no, and you probably think I’m an idiot, which I am, but I can’t turn it off, I don’t want to try, and that was amazing and I want to do it again, but I—”
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