Somewhere in California

by Toby Neal

  She knew where I was. She knew how closely I was watching.

  I matter to her—whatever that look meant.

  I’ve taken big risks before, on a lot less information than that. I’m done being a pussy. Trying to guard my heart. Truth is, I couldn’t guard it from her even when I tried.

  I yank the door open, resolved, and limp down the hall to the elevator. I stab the button—just as the doors open.

  Jade’s standing there in the elevator as if I conjured her with sheer wishful thinking. Her face is pink and fresh-scrubbed, her eyes very green. Her hair is dark and wet, streaming over the shoulders of a white hotel bathrobe that engulfs her from throat to knees.

  I’ve never seen anything sexier in my life.

  The door starts to shut and we both reach out to stop it at the same time, our hands colliding. I grab onto hers as the doors open again, and draw her toward me. “I was coming to see you.”

  “You were? Because I came to see you.”

  We stand awkwardly, facing each other, just outside the elevator’s closed doors. Could she be naked under that robe? A throb from my groin casts a hopeful vote. I’m such a classy guy.

  “We should talk.” I reach out and take one of her hands, slowly, hoping she won’t bolt. “Can we go to my room for some privacy?”

  “Better than here in the hallway.” Her hand is small, but I can feel how strong she is when she squeezes mine.

  “All right then.” My tongue feels too thick in my mouth. I can’t think of how to proceed, what to say, as we head back to my room. I key open the door and hold it ajar for her. “After you.”

  She walks in ahead of me. Her mahogany-red hair catches a gleam of light from the uncovered window facing the sparkling lights of the city. From behind, her feet bare, she looks about twelve.

  I feel a quiver of doubt. She’s too young. Pearl’s little sister. I can’t hurt her.

  Jade drops the robe. My breath seizes up. She’s naked, and she doesn’t look twelve any longer.

  Long legs, perfectly shaped, are topped by a round, high, heart-shaped butt that flows into that tiny waist and then back out again to strong shoulders. I take a step toward her, swallowing, as I notice every detail: pale silky skin covering the bumps of her spine. Thumbprint dimples at her hips. The triangle of her shoulder blade.

  “You’re so beautiful.” I’m so close to her now that the silk of my shirt brushes her skin. I don’t remember moving, but there I am, my mouth next to her ear, my voice raising the hairs on her arms.

  She turns, and tips her face up to mine. “I had to try one last time. To be with you.”

  I can’t believe she’s here, that she wants this as much as I do. I wrap her in my arms and lower my mouth to hers, telling her with my kiss how much I want her.

  Jade whimpers, twining herself around me like a vine around a tree, and all is a bit of chaos for a while until I’m aware of her plucking and tugging at my clothing, and I hear “not fair, I want you naked too,” in the murmurs coming from her plump, sweet, tasty mouth.

  “I must be dreaming.” I tug her by the hand and head for the bedroom, tearing at my buttons one-handed. “Am I dreaming?”

  Jade sits on the bed. In front of me. I remember her in that position in the sauna: her little, round, creamy breasts with their tender nipples, the vanilla of her skin, the plume of dark hair at the apex of her thighs, the sheen of her hair.

  “Let me.” She pulls my shirt out of my pants and begins unbuttoning as my hands caress her wet hair, her shoulders. My fingers stroke and caress one perfect breast—it’s as exquisite as summer fruit in my hand.

  Parting my shirt, she gives a cry. “Brandon! Who hurt you?”

  “A taxi.” I look down the expanse of my bruised body. “Got hit by a car going into the studio this morning. Gave me a pause to think about priorities.”

  “Oh, my God.” Her fingers gently slide over my bruises as she takes inventory, making me shiver, the hair rising on my body along with my erection. I’m harder than ever, a pulsing thickness straining the zipper of the tailored pants.

  “I’m fine. That’ll teach me not to look left when crossing the road.”

  “You could have been killed.” Jade finds my waistband as my hands fist in her hair. Her voice thickens. “I might never have seen you again.”

  I can’t think with her mouth that close to my erection.

  “I’m fine,” I repeat. “But I need to be in you. Soon. Or I’m not going to be fine.”

  She laughs, a sound that makes me weak in the knees, and tugs down the zipper. She pulls off my pants and boxers and I groan at the sensation as she touches me, still light, still tentative, but increasingly confident. She uses her fingers, her mouth.

  “Like this?” she asks. “Or like this?”

  “Just. Don’t. Stop,” I beg, and she laughs again, this time a throaty chuckle.

  But, eventually I do have to stop her, because I don’t want it to be over too soon. “Please. Let me. It’s your turn.”

  Jade ducks her head, and that long hair hides her face. “I’m feeling shy. I can’t believe we did that—you know. Before. That thing. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”

  That makes the blood surge through me, throbbing painfully. “Me too. And there’s another thing we’re going to do, if you’re ready. But I want you to be really ready. Because they say that sometimes your first time can be painful.”

  I’m thankful she doesn’t argue. Instead she nods, still hiding.

  I have to woo her out from behind her hair, but I’m impatient now—because that nod was a yes and I’m hungry for her: for all the ways I can taste, and feel, and take her.

  I push her back on the bed, grasp her by the hips. “You’re going to like this.”

  Jade

  I think I’m going to die any second now. Surely that’s where this is headed. Death is at the end of this galloping train of thundering heart, wound-up tightness, this sense of a golden ring just ahead if I can only reach it… I can’t stop tossing my head, and the sounds coming from my throat are someone else, surely, wanton as they are, mainly consisting of his name and please, please, please, oh yes.

  I’m ascending to a crest, my hands in his hair, and everything in me has become focused on this one, white-hot spot that contracts, drawing breathlessly tight, every muscle locked and rigid, sucked into a black hole of feeling; then, BOOM, it expands, rippling outward across my body, waves and waves of ecstasy that I can do nothing but ride… Until they wash me up on the beach of after, boneless as a jellyfish.

  “Mmm, that was good.” Brandon kisses his way up my body as I slowly return to it.

  He was impatient before, and he still is. I feel it in the tension of his shoulders beneath my hands, in the slight tremble of his lips as they touch my breast, nip along my collarbone, as they find that tiny nook behind my ear and make me sigh.

  “Are you ready for me?” Brandon asks, and I feel the length of him against me, hot and heavy.

  “Yes,” I breathe against his lips. “Oh yes.”

  He raises his head. “Damn. A condom. I must have one somewhere.”

  “In the pocket of my robe.” I cast my eyes down modestly.

  Brandon rears up and laughs. “You have a condom in the pocket of your robe?”

  “Alex had some lying around. It seemed like one might come in handy.”

  He surges up off the bed, and I love to watch him move: the lamplight falling on his long back, gilding the golden hairs of his body, sliding over the solid lines of his legs and the tight rounds of his buttocks. The bruises marring his skin make him even more beautiful to me—he was almost killed this morning.

  Walking back toward me, he’s even better to look at: the broad square lines of his shoulders, the planes of his pecs, the ridges of his abs—and his male hardness leads the way.

  “I’m not sure things are—going to fit.” My voice has gone squeaky. “Pretty sure that’s anatomically impossible.”

 
He chuckles, a sound I feel as a vibration as he lies down beside me, stroking me from hip to breast and back again, every touch leaving my skin yearning for more. “And I’m pretty sure both of us have a secret expansion pack just for times like these. We’ll take it slow.”

  He keeps up the stroking, and leans over to suck my nipple, drawing my breast deep into his mouth, then flicking me with his tongue. Within seconds, I’ve forgotten the intimidating sight of him walking toward me and feel that yearning again, that pushing, that craving for something nearby, promising amazement.

  I reach down between us and my hand encircles his shaft. I like how it feels, like silk over steel, as I explore it. He hisses through his teeth. “Don’t. Move.”

  “Perhaps it’s time for the jacket.” I pluck the condom off the comforter beside him and rip it open with my teeth. “I saw this in health class in seventh grade. With a banana. I think I can do it.”

  He makes a strangled groan of a laugh as I fit it on and roll it down, and then he immediately surges up over me, arms bracing his body above me, his thigh parting mine. “I know I said we’d take it slow—but I want you so much.” Sweat shines over his shoulders, his forehead gleams, and his hazel eyes are intent on mine. “Do you trust me?”

  “I do.” The words sound like making a vow.

  He’s at my entrance, and it feels tight, and full, but good.

  So, so good.

  Encouraged, I pull him closer and wriggle my hips to get him deeper.

  With a muffled curse, Brandon sinks into me all the way—past a minuscule resistance that, for a dancer, barely registers as a twinge of pain. Sunk deep in me, holding himself up on bunched, tight arms, Brandon’s voice is taut. “You okay?”

  I stroke my hands up his arms, touched by his concern, but as impatient as he is.

  “Yes!” I tighten my abs and sit up partway to slide my hands around and grasp him by those hard buttocks, pulling him in. “Yes!” I’ve had enough slowness and holding back.

  He surges deep with a heart-groan, then back, then forward again. I arch beneath him, feeling strangeness, fullness, the friction of tissues unused to such activity—but no real pain. And soon, a very real building, a pressure of need. “Yes, yes, more, yes!”

  And he does give me more, a most glorious pounding more…and it tips us both over the edge of frantic striving into bliss.

  Chapter 19

  Brandon

  I don’t want to leave her. I stay inside, propped on my elbows, looking down into Jade’s face, smoothing her hair back gently.

  “I’m sorry I was such a jerk. Walking away from you on the elevator like that. I’ve missed you every day since.”

  “I’m sorry that happened too.” Her eyes flutter shut. She’s thinking of Pearl. I feel the ghost of that conversation rising up, the bold question she asked—what is she to me? It’s a chill wraith ready to steal the bond between us.

  “Forget all that. We’re here now. Together.”

  “Yes, we are.” She lifts her head and kisses the hollow of my throat.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I am. Ruby told me her first time was awful—but that was no more than a pinch. Maybe all the dancing—I don’t know. Took care of it somehow.” Jade’s still not looking at me and her cheeks are pink as she turns her face away. “Let’s get a shower. Let me up.”

  She’s trying to withdraw from me, and I don’t like it. But crowding her might make it worse.

  “If I must.” I roll to the side and we head to the bathroom together. I flush the condom and follow her into the glassed-in shower cubicle “I was thinking of you before the performance. Right here in this shower. I can’t believe that, just hours later, you’re here with me.”

  “Yeah. I was thinking of you too. All through the performance.”

  She’s saying the right words, but she’s still got her back to me. Won’t meet my eyes. She has the flowery-smelling bar of hotel soap in her hands and she’s rubbing it with quick precise motions, and I see her lips moving.

  She’s counting.

  “Do you have OCD?” The recognition of her symptoms pops out of my mouth just as it hits my brain, and I desperately wish I could take the words back as she freezes. I bracket her in against the wall of the shower with my arms. “Because I don’t give a shit if you do. It would just help me understand what you need, how to help—if I knew.”

  Jade leans her forehead on the cool tile, her eyes closed. “Yes. I’m so embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be. We all have things we struggle with.” I press up against her from behind. “Want to get clean? Let me.” I pluck the soap from her hands, soap my own hands until they’re foamy, and set the bar in the holder. I spread my fingers and slide them up and down her back, shoulders, arms, into the deep and secret places of her body, the tender areas. Her breath comes faster and faster as she presses against the tile, her eyes closed, her hair a long dark river pooling water in the hollow of her lower back.

  I trace the pearl-like string of her spine, sliding down between her firm buttocks and between her legs, reaching around beneath her to cup her. One finger slides into her, finding that tiny gem that I seek. She rears back, slamming into my body with a gasp of aroused surprise, and that lets me sink my fingers deeper into her.

  I love the feeling of her butt against my forearm. Ah yes. She wants me again, and it’s a good thing because I want her again too.

  “Oh! Oh!” she cries, as I keep working her.

  I latch onto her neck with my lips and teeth. It sends her over the edge as I give her a hickey right on the same spot where she gave one to me so many days ago.

  “Mine,” I growl, through the welter of her climax against my hand. She seems about to collapse as the sensual pulses fade, sliding down the wall of the shower, so I turn her to face me. “My turn.”

  The smile Jade gives is incredibly beautiful. Her lips are red, her eyes the hazy green of a cedar grove in deep shadow. “Yes, it is.”

  I heft her up, lifting and sliding into her at the same time, settling her legs around my waist. All is wet, warm, slippery goodness, the shower filled with our sounds of pleasure as she slides up and down the wall, clutching my shoulders, my hair. My hands are filled with her, my mind is empty of anything but this moment, and like salmon leaping in a stream, we’re driven toward a glorious end.

  Thankfully my brain sends a last warning shot across the bow before disaster strikes, because I barely remember that I can’t come in her—that I don’t have a condom on. I get out in time, convulsing against her side, and she whimpers in disappointment. She slides her hands around to stoke my waist, hips, lower back.

  “You have to get on birth control,” I mutter into her neck. “I’m clean, and I kind of hate condoms, but we can’t take this kind of chance again.”

  “Okay,” she says. I hug her close.

  She said okay.

  ‘Okay’ implies a future. And lots of sex without a condom.

  I don’t remember ever feeling so happy or so good.

  Jade

  We’re still in the shower, plastered together in the longest, sweetest hug—but we’re getting pruney now.

  “Do you feel clean enough?” Brandon asks into my ear as he tenderly nibbles it.

  “Any cleaner, and my skin’s going to peel right off.”

  “Are you sure? Is there a magic number of times I should be doing something to make it feel right?” He’s still nibbling and kissing, and shivers of pleasure chase each other over my skin.

  “Thirteen,” I whisper. “Thirteen is my magic number.”

  “Okay. We’re going to stay in here and do it thirteen times.”

  My eyes pop open and I push him away, only to see his laughing face looking down at me. I can’t help smiling back. “I never joke about—this.”

  My OCD. My shameful weirdness.

  “It’s time to start.” Brandon’s still smiling. Not mocking or mean. Just teasing in a loving way. “Like, can I give you t
hirteen kisses right here?” He leans down to kiss the top of my nose. “Will that make it better?”

  “It’s a start.” I shut my eyes. He kisses my nose thirteen times. It makes me laugh, but it also feels exactly right—the way I need things to feel sometimes, when the world is changing too fast for me.

  “There. Now we can get out.” Brandon snaps off the water and opens the shower door. He pulls a big, fluffy bath towel down from a shelf and wraps me in it before getting his own. “Are you hungry?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am. I ate before the performance, but...”

  “I’d say you burned a few calories doing that piece. Incredible, by the way. I thought no one could beat Ernesto and Selina after their tango, but you two—so much heart. You have a real chance to win tomorrow night.” His words warm me somewhere deep. Somewhere that longs for that kind of validation—and he’s the producer of the show. He would know. Brandon shrugs into his hotel robe, and heads for the phone. “You can afford a few calories tonight—besides, you’re going to need them later.” He wiggles his brows at me and calls room service.

  I walk across the silky plush carpet and pick my robe up from the floor where I let it drop. I still can’t believe I had the courage for that bold move. I surprised myself. But after the show, after I cleaned off that glowing body paint, I just had to see him.

  In my bathrobe. With a condom in my pocket, and my heart in my eyes. Thank God it worked, or I’d be doing something nuts right now like counting all the tiles in the bathroom while lying on the floor in the fetal position.

  And he was coming to see me, too. The elevator door opened, and Brandon was standing there, so handsome, so perfectly dressed. His eyes lit up and a smile split his face, like me in my bathrobe was everything he’d ever hoped for.

  I couldn’t handle it. I had to look at the floor.

  Sometimes, I know I won’t be able to handle it. Any of this, even the amazing moments—but I’ll just have to keep trying.

  Brandon hangs up the phone. “I think we should find something fun to do while we wait for the food. I was thinking you might need a massage after all that dancing.”