by Amelia Wilde
I didn’t, but I kept my mouth shut. It was becoming clear that Ray Petersen had wanted to play some kind of Good Will Hunting role in Brandon’s life: rescue the brilliant kid from the ghetto to pad his own accomplishments. But Brandon’s desire to escape academia had proved a bitter disappointment. Maybe Ray hadn’t forgiven him for it.
Brandon deserved to be loved unconditionally—everyone did. I may have had only one flawed parent and a pushy grandmother to give that to me, but it was a damn sight more than some kids got. I wasn’t sure why Ray Petersen didn’t take that extra step. From what I could tell so far, there was a lot to love about his foster son.
We reached the end of the stairs in silence, Brandon now a few paces ahead of me. When I was two steps from the bottom, I grabbed Brandon’s jacket sleeve, pulling him to stop before he could open the exit door. With my extra ten inches or so, our eyes were about even. There I could see some unnamable pain he couldn’t quite mask, and my heart squeezed as he stared, open and vulnerable, back at me. So much of what he did now made more and more sense. It was all an attempt to make up for what he had been missing his entire life.
“What is it, Red?” he asked softly, reaching out one hand to tuck a stray lock away from my face.
I didn’t know quite what I wanted to say, but I was moved by his choice to take me here. It couldn’t have been easy. I wanted to tell Brandon that he deserved to be loved. I wanted to say I could be that person one day if he’d let me. I wanted to tell him he was amazing when he was content just to be himself.
But instead, I just reached up one hand and mirrored his action as I pushed a few errant strands of blond off his forehead. He was perfectly still as I traced my fingers around his ear and down the strong lines of his stubbled jaw, brushing my thumb gently over his full bottom lip.
“Thank you for taking me here,” I whispered. “I feel so…lucky. To know you.”
Brandon blinked, obviously confused, but before he could respond, I leaned in and pressed my lips softly to his. The brief contact sent an immediate shock wave through both of us, but I held him close. A few seconds passed, and his lips finally relaxed before he pulled away. I opened my eyes to find him staring at me again, but all traces of vulnerability had disappeared, replaced by something harder.
“Are you trying to fix me, Skylar?” he asked.
His blazing stare rendered me motionless.
“N-no,” I replied, my voice suddenly small.
Was I trying to fix something? He had looked so lost in that office, and I had wanted to do...I don’t know…something to take that feeling away.
“I don’t need to be fixed,” Brandon said emphatically.
He slid one arm firmly around my waist and jerked me up against him so that I could feel every inch of his iron body from my chest down to my toes. The lost boy was gone, and what had replaced him was a very strong man who could do whatever he wanted with me.
“I don’t need…” he trailed off as he buried his nose into my neck, pushing the collar of my blouse off my shoulder so he could nip my collarbone in a way that made me forget just where I was. He trailed back up, brushing his rough cheek against mine. “To be fixed,” he growled before taking my lips again.
There was no question in his statement at all; he wasn’t looking for a rebuke. And before I could protest, his deep, forceful kiss seemed to seep into every nerve ending in my body. His tongue sought entry, and as soon as I opened my lips, he entered with avarice, as if he couldn’t taste me enough.
In a few swift movements, Brandon lifted me off the stairs and backed me up against the wall under the stairwell, where we were hidden in the shadow from anyone who might come walking in. He continued to ravage my mouth and neck, large hands pulling my coat open and undoing the button and zipper to my pants with deft, demanding movements. He yanked my pants and underwear down my thighs in one swift motion, and while one hand continued to hold me around my waist like a vise, the other slipped in between my legs, thrust one finger, and then two into me.
“Jesus!” I moaned, breaking away from his mouth, which he in turn used to bite my earlobe.
“Christ, Red,” he hissed in my ear as he slipped a third finger in with the other two while his thumb found my clit. “You’re fucking dripping down here, baby. You’ve wanted this as bad as me, don’t you?”
His proclamation only made me quake further and press my body against his hand. I was glad he was there to hold me up because as his fingers drove me further toward the edge of losing consciousness, I was also losing the ability to stand on my own.
“I got you, Skylar,” Brandon purred, pressing harder with his thumb. “Just let go, baby.”
It didn’t take much more than that before his talented fingers push a little harder, and I split into a million pieces. His mouth sealed over mine once more, his tongue silencing the moans that threatened to echo through the entire building.
Before I could come back down from where I was floating, he suddenly flipped me toward the wall with a quick, brutal motion, and yanked my pants the rest of the way down to my ankles. He took his hands away just long enough to unbuckle his jeans, and I heard the crinkle of a condom wrapper just before I felt him slipping between my legs. I arched back, but he didn’t enter. Not yet.
Brandon slipped one hand under my shirt and pinched my nipple through my bra. I bucked against him at the sensation, moaning slightly. His other hand skimmed down my hip, tugging me away from the cold, rough wall to receive him. His fingers went back to massaging my clit, causing the tension in my belly to start all over again.
“I’m going to fuck you, Skylar,” he rumbled into my ear. “Are you ready to take it?”
I couldn’t do anything but moan again, but I managed to nod as his fingers moved faster. Brandon spread my legs as far as they could go with the garments twisted around my ankles. Then, with one swift strike, he filled me completely. The hand on my breast dropped to my hip as he pulled out and slammed back in again. He picked up the pace, thrusting evenly to cause that strange feeling to build inside me I had only experienced once before—just a few weeks ago, just with him.
“Tell me,” he growled as he continued his unforgiving work. The fingers on my clit stroked with a rhythm that matched his hips, and I was finding it hard to think. “Tell me you want me.”
“Jesus!” I cried as he slammed into me again. “I do. God, Brandon, I want you so fucking bad.”
He hurtled in and out of me, skin slapping skin with every ferocious movement, the sounds of our bodies resonating up the walls. The tension in my belly spread through all my limbs, and I could feel another orgasm approaching with every single thrust, every single pinch.
“I want you to come, Skylar,” Brandon ordered. “I want to feel you come all around me.”
He pulled out one more time. And then, with his final, hardest thrust, I fell forward and groaned as I lost all control over my body and my mind. Brandon collapsed over my back, his entire body throbbing as we shuddered together.
When I finally started to return to reality, the rough surface of the concrete wall rubbed uncomfortably against my cheek. I was standing in a dark stairwell of MIT, where several faculty members of the most prestigious technical institute in the world could plausibly see me with my pants around my ankles.
Well, at least it wasn’t a Harvard building.
I shifted, and Brandon pulled out with a sigh. As gracefully as I could, I squatted down to tug my pants back up, wondering just what I had done. I had promised myself I’d take it slow with him. Considering it wasn’t like me to have sex with a man on our first date, it definitely wasn’t like me to have sex in a public stairwell. Not to mention lose control like that…again.
I was starting to rack up quite a few things on the list of out-of-character things I seemed to do when I was with Brandon.
When I turned around, Brandon was staring at me, chest still heaving although he had neatly closed his pants and somehow disposed of the condom. I noticed all s
orts of small details about him I hadn’t seen before. He had a tiny scar notched just right of his left eyebrow, and a few worry lines crisscrossed over his eyes, currently the color of the Caribbean. A drop of sweat made its way from his hairline down the bridge of a nose that would be knife-straight were it not for an obviously once-broken bridge.
I reached up with a finger and wiped the drop away before it could fall to the floor. My touch broke our silent trance.
Brandon blinked, then stamped a brief but thorough kiss on my swollen lips. He looked appreciatively over me before he reached down to help me button my jeans.
“Don’t,” I said, batting his hands away. After what he had just done, I could handle redressing myself.
“I, ah…” he began, trailing off as he ran a sheepish hand through his mussed hair. I reached out and smoothed it around his ear, and was rewarded with a heart-melting smile as he grabbed my hand and kissed it.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” he said against my palm before releasing it.
“I wasn’t either,” I murmured, my face turning red.
But if he thought less of me, Brandon showed no signs of it as he pulled me to him and nuzzled into my neck. “You seem to bring things out in me…” he said gruffly. “I don’t know. This was very…out of the ordinary.”
I blew out a long, relieved breath. “I’m glad I’m not the only one.”
Brandon stood up and smiled.
“Come on, Red, let’s get out of this dungeon,” he said as he straightened his jacket. “I’m starving, and I’m thinking pizza and some decent beer is in order.”
21
After texting David that we were going to take the train to the North End, Brandon spent the ten-minute walk to the station holding my hand and brooding silently. He strode quickly and efficiently through the darkened campus, forcing me at times to jog to keep up. By the time we descended into the brightly lit T station, the din of public transportation was a nice substitute for Brandon’s hurried footsteps.
“Did you remember your tokens?” I asked, batting my eyelashes as we approached the turnstiles to swipe Charlie cards.
“Very funny,” Brandon said, but surprised me when he whipped out a card for himself. He waved it in front of my face before swiping through. “First thing I did after I got back to Boston. Well, the first thing I asked Margie to do.”
“Because you take the T all the time, right?” I joked.
“Apparently now I do,” Brandon said with a grin.
He took my hand again as we walked to the downtown track. His steps were slower. Thank goodness.
“I have some hand sanitizer if you need it,” I whispered. His nose wrinkled when we passed a corner that smelled distinctly of urine. “You know, if you can handle hanging with us ordinary folks.”
Brandon rolled his eyes. “You act like I was raised with a silver spoon. I’ll let you know if I need some help.”
He released my hand and slid an arm around my waist comfortably, just before he reached a little lower to pinch my backside. My squawks were apparently better than he expected since he laughed out loud at my reaction. The sounds of our horseplay echoed through the tall chamber. I reveled in the sound for the brief seconds until it subsided into the hum of the station.
“So, are you doing this for me?” I asked as we stood apart from a few other people waiting for the inbound Red Line to approach. “I mean, you pay for that fancy car of yours. You don’t need to take shitty public transit—and it’s well known that this line is particularly shitty—just for me.”
“Would you take the car with me?”
I raised an eyebrow. “All the time? Probably not.” Something about that still felt uncomfortable.
Brandon tipped his head from side to side, as if weighing the option. “You’re suggesting I abandon my date just so I can stay in my posh, clean car while she takes the train with everyone else? Are you trying to make me strike out with you completely, Red?”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course not. I just feel bad. You shouldn’t have to be someone you’re not any more than I do.”
Brandon shrugged but didn’t quite meet my gaze. “Don’t you sometimes just want to forget who you are anyway?” he asked quietly. “I told you, something about you makes me feel like regular Brandon again, instead of ‘Mr. Sterling.’ Who knows, maybe it is the fact that you drag me onto the train.” He glanced at me with a crooked smile. “I kind of like it.”
He winked, and stepped toward the edge of the platform to look for a sign of an approaching train. I didn’t reply. I didn’t know whether his comment meant that I was good in his life or bad (did I want to be thought of as a distraction?), but I didn’t want to spoil his good mood while it was making a comeback.
“Well, you’re never going to convince me that was better than New York pizza, but it was pretty good,” I said as I put my gloves back on.
We strolled out of Alberto’s Pizzeria, a tiny hole-in-the-wall place deep down one of the windy North End corners the tourists couldn’t find. A bell rang behind us as we stepped out into the cold.
“You’re a dirty liar, Red. That’s the best pizza outside of Italy,” Brandon said as he patted his still-flat belly.
He had put down at least half a pie by himself. I didn’t know how he did it; I had eaten two pieces and was completely stuffed.
“Am not,” I insisted.
“Are too. Did you hear those guys speaking Italian? It’s the real deal here. Nobody in New York’s Little Italy is like that anymore.”
I shrugged. I couldn’t argue with him there. Everyone from New York knew that the real Little Italy was in the Bronx anyway. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be Italian to make great pizza. Every New Yorker knows that.”
Brandon scoffed. He slung a heavy arm over my shoulders and steered us toward the pedestrian-heavy Hanover. Even though it was still the middle of winter, the cobblestoned street was full of people waiting to eat at the various trattorias and pasticcerias that lined the uneven sidewalks.
Brandon walked us into one shop that was crowded enough that condensation fogged the storefront windows. Releasing me, he elbowed his way to the counter, then pulled me in front of him, wrapping his arms securely around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder.
He never seemed to want to stop touching me, I thought with pleasure. All through dinner, which we had eaten on stools at a Formica-covered counter, he had rested one hand comfortably on my knee; on the train, he’d balanced his arm along the back of my seat so his fingers could toy with my hair. Now, with his hands knotted about my waist, I could hear him hum as we perused the pastries.
“You ever been here before?” he said directly into my ear so he could be heard over the din.
Shop employees scurried behind the counter, taking orders from customers at such a dizzying pace I felt like I was back on Wall Street, watching the traders on the floor.
I twisted my head around to grin at him. “Mike’s? Of course. Best cannoli in the city. Not as good as back home, but still delicious.”
Brandon grinned back, his dimples showing in a way that made my stomach flip despite its full contents.
“We’ll see. Two ricotta cannoli, a coffee, and a tea, please,” he called to a server and released my waist to find his wallet.
“No, let me,” I protested, yanking my wallet from my purse as quickly as I could. “You got dinner.”
“Absolutely not.” Brandon pulled out a twenty.
Obviously he couldn’t completely get rid of his need to impress. I understood more now about why he was that way, but it didn’t convince me to put away my wallet.
“Nope,” I said, plucking the twenty from Brandon’s hand and shoving it into his jacket pocket.
Before he could object, I handed a ten to the bored teenage server, who shuffled away to make change and retrieve our desserts.
“Come on, Red. I thought I was taking you out,” Brandon grumbled, trying not to make a scene in the middle of the café.<
br />
I twisted around with a playfully raised eyebrow and touched him on the nose with my index finger. “You’re pretty cute for an Eisenhower-era chauvinist, did you know that?”
The small crease between Brandon’s eyebrows deepened, but he couldn’t hide the amusement cracking his fierce expression. “I guess I’ll have to be faster than you, then. You’re going to keep this old man young; I can see that.”
I grinned and turned back toward the counter, grabbing the cannoli and my tea from the server with quick thanks.
“Let’s walk and eat, old man,” I called to him, wanting to get out of the congested shop.
I wove through the throngs of people and was out the door before I turned around for my date. Brandon’s blue eyes glowed through the crowd, clearly up for the chase.
“Favorite movie.”
It was a common game that had emerged spontaneously as we meandered around the North End and down toward the harbor, enjoying our cannoli and drinks as we zigged through one of the oldest parts of Boston. So far, I had discovered that Brandon’s favorite drink was a craft IPA (although he also enjoyed good scotch or brandy), his favorite song was “The River,” and his favorite color was red. From his obvious leer during the last answer, I had to wonder about the truth of the last one. I, in turn, had informed him of my similar love of excellent scotch or Irish whiskey, my longtime love affair with Chopin, and that, like every other stereotypical New Yorker, I favored black.
I gave him a playful side-eyed look. “What do you think, boss man?”
Brandon wrinkled his nose with an expression so adorable that I wanted to kiss him.
“Please tell me it’s not that movie about the blonde chick at Harvard,” he said finally.
“Well, I’m not a complete cliché,” I said. “No, although Legally Blonde is objectively hilarious. Don’t even try to argue the point. You’ll lose. Guess again.”