I had to shoot her.
Thinking of Steven in the same position, imagining him at the mercy of anyone who was as single-minded in their destructive rampage as Menayda Kazlauskas was, terrified me.
I’d do it again.
Looking at his face, watching his eyes dart around the room, I felt a peace about the shooting. I grabbed his hand resting on the table and held it, causing him to direct his attention back to me.
“Have you ever been here before?” I asked.
“No, have you?”
“Once, probably two years ago. I liked the food and the trio that was playing was sensational. I told myself I’d come back again, but never managed to. I’m glad I could be here with you.”
He flashed me a genuinely happy smile. “Me too.” He opened his mouth to say something, but then looked over my shoulder and pulled his hand away.
A waitress stopped alongside the table and greeted us. She took our drink orders and stepped away. We smiled at each other across the table and I prompted, “What were you—”
I was going to ask what he’d started to say before the waitress appeared, but she whirled around and stepped back to the table, interrupting again.
“I forgot to get your starter order. Would you like an appetizer?”
We hadn’t looked at a menu or barely had a chance to say a handful of words to each other, let alone decide on a starter.
She was looking at Steven, so he said, “What do you rec—” but I didn’t appreciate the rush so I put the brakes on.
“We just sat down and haven’t looked at the menu. We need more time to look over the selection.” What I said wasn’t rude, but by Steven’s arched eyebrows, I could tell my tone was less than pleasant. I quickly checked my manners and said, “Please.”
“Sure, I’ll get your drinks and give you a few.”
When she left, Steven said, “Grumpy Ken returns, huh? I’d wondered where he’d gone to.”
“Sorry, I didn’t intend for that to come across as rude, but I didn’t want us to be rushed. I’d like to draw the night out if I can,” I explained, leaning in on my forearms. “I’ve been thinking about this date with you and, well, when I get something built up in my mind, I can be a prick when it doesn’t work out like I planned.”
He laughed sharply, as if he were surprised by my admission.
“It’s a defect that runs in my family,” I continued. “My sister is the absolute worst.” I rolled my eyes, then smiled in a way I hoped was inviting and charming. “Feel free to give me a reality check whenever I get too unbearable.”
“Ooh, I look forward to it.” He rubbed his palms together in exaggerated anticipation. He then rested his forearms on the table and mimicked my forward posture. “So, do you just have the one sister?”
“Yeah, Kari,” I replied. “She’s thirty-five.”
“Hey, our parents all love alliteration, it seems. Ken-Kari, Steven-Sophie,” he pointed out. “Sophie is older than I am, too. But just by a year. I’m thirty-three. How old are you? I know you can’t be as old as thirty-five.”
“Thirty-one.”
Our server came back with our drinks and Steven picked her brain for recommendations, being extra nice and animated with her, most likely trying to make up for my earlier snappishness. We ended up ordering a bacon and brie starter and when she left, I decided to sow some seeds for later down the road since we were on the topic of siblings.
“My sister is getting married the last weekend of October.”
“Here in Chicago? Are you from Chicago? I can’t believe I haven’t asked you that yet.”
“No, we’re from Cleveland, but she’s getting married on Mackinac Island up in Michigan.”
“In the Hotel?” he asked excitedly. I nodded. “Before you go, we’ll have to watch Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve. You’ll hate it.”
Ignoring the movie comment, I said, “Maybe by then, you’d like to be my date?” I inwardly chastised myself for the unintentional inflection I put on the words. They weren’t meant to be a question, but rather, something for him to consider later. I didn’t want to put any pressure on him or make plans for us so far into the future that I could get hung up on or build outrageous expectations around. The truth was, I had a lot of hope that three months from now, we’d still be seeing each other. And if we were, it would be weird not to bring him. If I felt this way after a month of knowing him. I could just imagine what I’d feel after four.
“You’re really a go-getter, aren’t you, DKM?” He sounded a bit bewildered.
“When it comes to dating, no, not really. But for other things, yes,” I explained. “The wedding is going to happen. I have to be there. I thought I’d present the possibility to you so you could think about it.”
“Oh, I’m going to think about it, alright,” he muttered.
“I don’t mean to pressure you or anything,” I quickly added, sensing I’d crossed a line.
He raised one hand to stop me. “It’s fine. I knew you were an intense guy. I just didn’t realize what it would feel like to have that intensity focused on me.”
His heated gaze locked with mine in unspoken awareness, revealing his own simmering ardor. It was a look rife with earnest intent and eager reciprocation. I could almost hear him thinking, Bring it on, Dr. Miles. Bring it on.
I was definitely going to bring it.
* * *
Okay, what am I bringing, exactly?
Climbing into the cab broke the spell of the club and dissipated a lot of the easy confidence I’d been luxuriating in throughout the night.
We’d enjoyed the jazz as background music through dinner, so engrossed as we were in the fluid conversation. It wasn’t until our plates had been cleared away, that we lapsed into a natural lull to focus on the entertainment. The night had so far been all that I’d hoped it would be and more.
But, with the coolness of the outdoors and abrupt cessation of our soundtrack and rhythm—the absence of murmuring diners, clinking dishes, cymbals and trilling saxophone—I was hyper-aware that next was now.
As the car pulled away from the curb, Steven examined me. “You have that thing going on with your face again.”
“What thing?” I asked.
“The thing where you look like a cyborg or android whose switch is in the off position.”
“That’s…I don’t know what to think of that.”
“Think about this,” he said, and leaned into my ear to whisper. “You. In my bed. All night.”
I felt heat rush to my face and my dick twitched. He pulled back to smile at me. “Yes?”
“Yes,” I rasped. I wanted that. Wanted it so much, but I was afraid to get my hopes up.
Did I want hours and hours to lick and suck and explore? Did I want to know his every bend and bulge, ticklish spots, and erogenous zones? Did I want to spend the evening in orgasmic bliss? Hell yeah, I did. I had a pocket full of flavored condoms at the ready for just such a fortuitous occasion.
But all of that meant I was going to have a discussion with him I was apprehensive about starting. It needed to be done, I just didn’t know what his reaction was going to be. Would he be annoyed or irritated by my lack of experience? It’s not like I couldn’t navigate my way around a penis or anything, but I knew I was in uncharted territory and hoped he had the patience for it.
Steven pulled me from my musings with a soft curse.
“Shit.” He was looking ahead to the front of his building as we approached the circle. Nico and Elizabeth were exiting and walking toward an idling black SUV. “Don’t pull up close, wait until they pull away,” he instructed our driver.
“I’ve got other fares, you know, I don’t have all night to wait around,” he complained, but still stopped the sedan just inside the circle.
Steven dug cash out of his wallet and laid the bill on the man’s shoulder. “Here’s a twenty. It will be two seconds.”
“Steven.” I issued him an incredulous, wide look, momentarily take
n aback by his behavior.
As the cars started forward, he explained, “Do you really want to have the night interrupted with awkwardness and glares from Nico? Because I don’t.” The car stopped and he opened the door. “Let’s not make this weird.”
I followed him out but stopped on the curb. Ready to tell him I didn’t give a shit what Nico thought, he stepped to me and brought his mouth to mine. The kiss was hot and brief, ending when I tried to take it deeper. He pulled away and asked, “Can that be the reality check I give you when you get all cranky?” Without waiting for my answer, he said, “I look forward to your bad moods and might deliberately provoke them.”
“I think that’s a good plan,” I agreed, pacified.
We made our way through the lobby and into the elevator and when the doors shut, my earlier concerns rose again. “We need to talk about some things first,” I blurted.
“Of course,” he said readily, unsurprised by my loud declaration. “This talk is what had you suddenly uptight in the cab?”
“Yes.” I rubbed my hair, then my eyes, frustrated with myself already. “I-I just don’t…I’m not great at segueing from ‘I had a great night’ to ‘Let’s get naked.’”
Steven scoffed. “You seemed pretty sure of yourself last night when you were demanding I take my cock out for you.”
I flushed at the memory, heat suffusing my body. “That was different.” And it was different. I’d come to him full of anxiety and urgency then. There had been no real forethought, no planning. Dates were a whole other ball game from spontaneous passion.
“Besides,” I said as the elevator doors opened. “It’s not just the segue that I’m not sure how to navigate, it’s the conversation about…expectations.”
Steven’s brows pulled down in confusion. We didn’t move for a moment, each of us staring into the other’s eyes. Him trying to make sense of my words and me trying to wordlessly communicate. But nothing was getting solved that way, so I walked out of the car and stepped into the hallway of his floor.
“Let’s go inside. I know I’m not making sense, but we can’t talk about it here.”
After we entered the apartment, he flipped on a lamp and said, “Tell me what you meant by expectations.” He crossed to the couch, sat down, and rested his elbows on his knees. “Are you talking about establishing a no-strings thing, or is this about whose penis goes where?”
I joined him on the sofa. “I think you know I want more from you than a hook-up,” I huffed out a rueful laugh. “No, what I meant by expectation is that I know you probably think I have some set rules about what I like or what I was going to do, but my experience with men has been limited.”
His face and body seemed to still, absorbing my meaning. “You haven’t been with a guy before?”
I couldn’t tell if that was a pause of disappointment or surprise or what, but I needed to lay the cards out. “Not…fully,” I ended on an exhale.
Understanding dawned and he relaxed. “Oh. Okay, so you’ve been with men, just not penetrative sex, right?”
“Yes, so, I’m not set on any certain way or anything. I’m open to experiencing all of it with you, but I might need your patience.”
“Holy shit,” he whispered, shaking his head.
“Is that okay? Is that a good holy shit?” I honestly couldn’t tell.
“Oh, the sexy unicorn wants to know if I mind showing him the delights of man-love,” he muttered to himself, staring toward the inky blackness of the windows.
“I take it we’re cool then?” I smiled expectantly, even though he wasn’t looking at me.
“Life is really bizarre,” he continued in a whisper, blinking hard.
“Steven.” I raised my voice a bit, hoping to penetrate his ruminations.
He stood suddenly, grabbed my hand and hauled me up. “We’re going to the bedroom. Now.”
“Oh, good, I was worried I wouldn’t get a chance to Bring It.”
Without looking back at me, he said, “You’re such a weirdo sometimes, DKM.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
*Steven*
“I can get us out of this, if you want,” I said, looking past my own reflection in the mirror to Ken. He was standing slightly behind me, fiddling nervously with a few errant curls on the top of his head. The man looked gorgeous, and I couldn’t find fault with his hair or his outfit, both of which seemed to be causing him stress.
How he could fret about his appearance was a baffling mystery to me. His tall, hard, frame meant clothes—off the rack—fit like they were made for him. It didn’t matter what they were, either. Scrubs—sexy. Preppy polo and slacks—sexy. Suit and tie—sexy. Jeans and T-shirts—sexy. Sweatpants and compression shirts—sexy as fuck.
Don’t even get me started on his birthday suit…
Standing next to him, examining both of our reflections side by side, I felt a twinge of insecurity. Usually, a disparity in physicality wouldn’t bother me. A few inches in height or even several pounds difference in either direction, was never anything I cared about. But with Ken, it wasn’t just a matter of a couple of inches and a couple of pounds. It was also brighter eyes, stronger jaw, straighter teeth, fuller lips, shorter nose. And—god damn it, something I did not want to think about—thicker hair.
For a couple of light-eyed, blond men in their thirties, we couldn’t have looked more different.
Discordant.
These were feelings I didn’t have on the regular. When I looked at him, I felt happy. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt content. I loved how Ken looked and I recognized my own unusual assemblage of features were attractive in their own way. Plenty of men—Ken included— let me know the sharp face and lithe body was a turn-on. No, I had a good grasp of my own appeal.
I just wondered if, to the outside, we seemed mismatched.
In the mirror we did.
From the inside, we didn’t. From the inside, we felt harmonious.
Ken stopped messing with his hair and connected his eyes to mine in the mirror.
“Babe, for the seventeenth time, I want to do this. I want to know your friends.”
I smiled at the use of the pet name. He, unlike me—who barely ever called him by his real name, preferring a multitude of cutesy and bizarre terms—didn’t feel very comfortable using them. MST3K was abandoned after the first attempt, and he said Honey reminded him of his grandmother, so he only busted out the Babe occasionally.
In the three weeks since our official first date, he’d only really used it as a softener to preface a slight scolding. Babe, I don’t care which one is McSteamy or McDreamy. Babe, we don’t have time for round two, I’m going to be late for work. Babe, I’d rather contract bacillary dysentery than watch this dancing show.
His use of the word now meant he was tired of me overthinking our night out tonight. We were meeting Ernesto and Paulie for drinks. I hadn’t been keen on the idea, but Ernesto had been insistent, and Ken had been enthusiastic. My reluctance was obvious, and I suspected it was starting to annoy Ken. I didn’t want him to think I wanted to keep him apart from my friends, but… I kind of did.
We were in a bubble of awesome right now. Exploring each other, learning how to navigate this new relationship, feeling giddy twenty-four hours a day—these were things I didn’t want to alter.
I didn’t want Ern planning group nights out yet, I didn’t want them to grill us or put pressure on us to admit or confess things, and I sure as hell didn’t want any judgment.
I sighed. Ken looked miffed, like I’d hurt his feelings. I didn’t want that. It was the opposite of what I wanted.
“Okay, McPretty, but you have to promise me something.” I turned to face him.
“What?”
“You have to promise me that when Ern gets all presumptuous and obnoxious and asks you what your intentions toward me are, or if you make enough money to keep me living the lifestyle to which I’m accustomed, you won’t get offended, angry, or scared off.”
His ann
oyance evaporated and he laughed. Shaking his head, he said, “I promise.”
“It’s only been three weeks,” I pointed out. “Getting the third degree from friends seems like something for later down the road. Much later.”
“I disagree. The sooner I meet them, get to know them, and let them get to know me, the better for all of us.” He kissed the tip of my nose and gave my ass a light slap. “Now quit worrying and let’s go.”
* * *
Reason #564 of why I was less-than-thrilled about Ernesto’s plans: We were meeting in the same club on Halstead where I’d first met King during the bar-crawl. For all I knew, I was walking into one of his regular haunts.
Something told me, though, that the venue didn’t matter. If he had decided to continue following me—because I knew he had to have followed us after the movie last month—he could show up regardless of where we went.
Those last three weeks of July had several, closely-spaced contacts from King—from the dick pic and text, to the photos, to the phone call. But after I’d threatened to involve the police and I’d changed my number all had been silent. Crickets for three weeks and it had been fantastic.
Between the silence from King and the dizzying heights of being with Ken, I’d almost forgotten that I was ever concerned about the man. And it wasn’t until Ernesto texted me a couple of hours before that I’d thought about risk.
ERNESTO: Paulie wants to dance. He wants to go to The Magnificent Male.
I almost mentioned it to Ken but decided to let it go because I figured King was a thing of the past. Besides that, I didn’t want to argue with Ern and Paulie over where to meet, and I could tell Ken was already taking my reluctance for this night personally.
Sticking to the Script: Cipher Office Book #2 Page 15