by A. J. Marcus
“You better get busy, then,” Adrian said, reaching out to carefully stroke the elephant as she stepped up to him. “I wouldn’t want her to think I was keeping you busy and delaying her shower. Not with us getting off to such a good start.” He looked up at Cara. “He’s all yours now.” Then he looked back at Ed. “I need to get Sebastian home. See you tomorrow.”
“Lunch,” Ed replied. He watched as Adrian disappeared around the wall. His heart still pounded and his palms sweated, until Cara tapped him on the shoulder and blew in his ear. The smell of grass and alfalfa swirled around him.
The elephant trainer jumped. “Sorry, girl, I guess you want your shower now.”
Eddy and Ciro rounded the wall. “Hey, Dad, can I give Ciro his shower this evening? You know he’s starting to play with the hay while Cara’s eating.”
Seeing his son standing next to the baby elephant broke Ed out of his Adrian daze more thoroughly than Cara had. After Eddy’s little threat to Adrian, he realized he’d have to make a real effort to be sure his son didn’t feel neglected in any way if he were to spend time with the sexy satyr. “Sure, kiddo, let me get Cara showered, and you can do Ciro. I think he’ll like it if you start showering him.”
“Cool, Dad.” Eddy smiled up at him, and a sense of warmth spread through Ed.
Chapter 13
His nerves almost pushed Adrian to pace around the table at the steak house as he waited for Ed to show up. The Wednesday night crowd was light, but he didn’t think they’d appreciate him pacing around the small table. Maybe I should’ve waited in the lobby and eaten peanuts? Why am I this nervous? He drummed on the back of the unopened menu. I’ve never been nervous on a date before. Sure, this is the first third date I’ve had in quite some time, plus the first one that hadn’t had sex before it. Their second date, lunch on Sunday, had gone about like their first had: quiet conversation, then checking on the kids after they made their dinner plans for tonight. It had been nice.
Adrian found it pleasant to just enjoy Ed’s company. He wasn’t one of the stuck-up music people from the orchestra, who cared more about how music sounded than anything else. He also wasn’t one of the bar bois who constantly worried about his appearance or if he could be seen out with this person or not. So far he didn’t know if the elephant trainer had any bad habits, but that could come. Learning new things was also nice. There was a lot more to the elephants than he’d ever imagined. For the past couple of days, Adrian had been trying to recreate the low, barely audible song he’d heard Cara singing to Ciro. Ed had explained that most elephant vocalizations were too low for human ears to pick up, and that he probably couldn’t hear all the nuances of the mother’s song to her baby.
Looking down at his watch, Adrian realized it was still a couple of minutes before seven, the time they agreed to meet. Did I really show up fifteen minutes early? I didn’t want to make a bad impression. It was one thing to go to lunch when Ed stopped by the booth, and something else entirely to be late for a planned dinner.
Since he’d been watching the door since he sat down, Adrian spotted Ed the moment he followed the waitress through from the foyer. Dressed for a date, Ed cut a nice figure in a burgundy button-up shirt tucked into a pair of slender khakis. The combination showed off his broad shoulders and trim waist better than his faire garb did. He’d also left the top button on the shirt undone, and a tuft of brown hair peeked through the opening.
“Hope you haven’t been waiting too long,” Ed said after the waitress departed.
Adrian shook his head. “Nope, barely got here myself.” He quickly glanced at the table to make sure he hadn’t nervously torn up a napkin or something and not realized it. Then they both settled back into their seats.
“I had a little trouble finding the place.” Ed smiled, and Adrian’s heart skipped a beat. “I know Dallas a bit, but this place is a little out of the way.”
“Some of the best things are.” Adrian smiled back. His impatience melted away, and now he just wanted to spend time talking to Ed. “They have some of the best steaks in town. Even some of the pricier restaurants aren’t this good. They’re more pricy, but not as tasty.”
“I’m a simple guy,” Ed said, picking up the menu. “It doesn’t take much to make me happy.” He glanced over the plastic-guarded paper, and his brown eyes caught Adrian’s. The light from the small candle on their table sparkled there.
Adrian swallowed back a gulp. “Well, that makes my job easier, doesn’t it?”
“And what job would that be?”
“Getting to know you even better, and getting you to like me.” He wanted to smack himself in the head for sounding so stupid. What is it about Ed that makes me act like some stupid schoolboy? A big part of him still wished they’d been more alone Saturday afternoon when they’d washed the juice out of his hair. That could’ve easily gotten so much more intense.
“That sounds like a fairly easy job.” Ed ducked back down behind the menu. “So, anything here better than the rest? Other than you, that is.” Adrian fought back the blush that tried to rise in his cheeks. “The sirloin and T-bones are both good. If you like extremely marbled meat, the rib eye and prime rib are awesome. I prefer their baked potatoes over their fries.” As he finished, the waitress returned for their orders.
“So how has your week been so far?” Ed asked as the waitress departed.
“Not bad. Still trying to figure out that song Cara was singing. It’s been eating away at me since Saturday. I’ve got part of the tune, but it’s not translating to flute the way I thought it might. I’m tempted to go rent a tuba and see if I can get closer.”
“Do you write a lot of your own music?”
“Not normally, no,” Adrian admitted. “But since starting at the faire, things are inspiring me. The first week it was just the general feel of the place, and this week it’s Cara.”
“Strange as it sounds, elephants can do that to you. But it sounds like being at the faire is a good thing for you. It’s pulling at your creativity. I like that. I’ve never been overly creative myself.”
“But you help bring the wonder of the animals to people who might never see an elephant or camel. Let alone a baby elephant. You may not have created them, but you are bringing their beauty to the world.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking about adding some kind of educational information thing. You know, like you see at zoos. But I can’t come up with anything that would look period enough to pass the festival’s standards.”
Adrian took a sip of his water while they waited for their drinks to arrive. “Let me think about that. I haven’t been working the faire long enough to know what their concept of ‘period standards’ are, but I bet we could come up with something.”
“That’d be nice.” Ed nodded and also picked up his glass. “I won’t bore you with the whole plight of the wild elephant tales, but I do like to try and give back to the critters that give me so much joy and happiness. That was the big reason why I went ahead and bred Cara three years ago. She’s the last of her bloodline in captivity, and we need to keep the gene pool viable.”
“Good reason,” Adrian agreed. “So it wasn’t just so that people would stop by and see the baby?”
Ed shook his head as he set his glass back down. “Nope, actually, I would’ve left them both at home this year, but my third elephant got too old to work anymore. Her last season at TRF this past fall was almost more than she could bear. So, even though Ciro is only six months old, Cara is socialized well enough to work and let folks near him. If she wasn’t so socialized, it would be dangerous.”
“I bet elephants get dangerous easily.”
“It depends on how well trained they are and the situations they’re put in. We keep as much as possible routine and regular, and things run smoothly. Trainers have to know what they’re doing and stick to their routine. Cara and Gwen will be forgiving if we mess up once in a while. We’ll have to be a little more careful with Ciro when he gets bigger.”
&nb
sp; “Why, because he’s young?”
“Nope, because he’s male. Males are a lot more unpredictable than females. The odds are fairly even that he won’t have the right temperament for elephant rides, even with a good, steady upbringing. I was really hoping he’d be female. But as a male, I can get his genes out to more people a lot easier.”
“So you’re saying that boys can be a bit of a handful?”
Ed smiled and winked. “Boys will be boys. So, do you like boys that are a handful?”
The flirt was a little more direct than any they’d done before, but Adrian knew how to handle direct flirting. It was actually something he was good at. “Depends on where that handful is. Now a mouthful, that I like to handle,” he replied in a lusty tone.
Their waitress returned with their steaks and set the meat on the table before Ed could respond. The savory aroma of the hot food flooded through Adrian’s senses. His stomach growled, and he realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He’d been so wrapped up in trying to get Cara’s song to sound right, and then in making sure he looked just right for the date.
“That looks and smells great,” Ed said. He cut a piece of meat and slowly put it in his mouth. Adrian just watched for a minute as he chewed. “Wow, tastes awesome.” His brown eyes sparkled. “Almost as good as I imagine something else tasting.”
Adrian snagged the beer the waitress had brought just minutes before the food and took a long draw off it, then smiled at Ed. “I’ll have to remember to ask for a comparison.”
They settled into quiet eating. Adrian wondered if Ed was as hungry as he was, or had taken the opportunity to lay off the flirting for a couple of minutes. As he chewed his steak, he watched Ed. The man moved slowly, meticulously. Each move he made looked like it was well thought out. Even the way he lifted a forkful of buttery potato to his mouth was gentle and smooth. Not choppy and erratic like most people.
“Something wrong with your food?” Ed asked after chewing another mouthful of steak.
Adrian blinked for a second. “No, why?”
“You’ve stopped eating.”
“Oh, sorry.” Heat rose in Adrian’s face. “I was just watching you.”
Ed smiled and set his fork on his plate. “That makes me feel better for watching you so much this weekend.”
“But not tonight?”
“I’m starving tonight,” Ed admitted. “I’m still watching, but I haven’t had anything since about sunrise, so staring at your handsome face has to happen while I’m eating.”
Adrian chuckled as he cut a piece of steak. “I understand.” After chewing, he smiled. “I just like watching the way you move. It’s very fluid, like a simple, peaceful melody. Not jumpy and choppy like so many people.”
Ed shrugged. “It probably comes from working with animals. They don’t like jerky, erratic movement. It becomes habit after a while.”
Through the rest of his steak and potato, Adrian made an effort to eat as he watched Ed. Doing so, he realized that the other man was watching him too.
“So, Adrian, before you started performing with the orchestra, what did you do?” Ed set his beer down. “Have you been a musician all your life?”
“Pretty much.” Adrian nodded. “I found music back in elementary school. Joined band in junior high and concert choir and band in high school. Actually managed to go to University of Texas on a music scholarship, and let me tell you, those are hard to get. Every band geek in the state and beyond thinks they can get them.”
“So you were top of your class?”
“Had to be. If I wanted a career in music, I had to get to the top and stay there. Nobody remembers the second chair folks.” He paused for a moment and thought about how the second chair flute at the Dallas Symphony was now first chair, in his spot. For the first time in nearly twenty years, he was going to have to climb the ladder back to the top. But first he had to figure out which ladder he wanted to climb.
“Chair?” Ed shrugged as he speared the last forkful of potatoes.
“The musical world uses a chair nomenclature. You’ve heard of understudy in the terms of theater?”
Ed nodded as he chewed the potatoes.
“Same concept, just a different term.”
“Okay. So you’re sorta like a herd bull. Large and in charge, most of the time?”
The image made Adrian chuckle. “Yep. I like running around making louder noise than everyone else so they all look at me.”
“From the sound of it, yes.” Ed graced him with another smile right before finishing off the steak.
“So how long can you stay?” Adrian asked as he opened the door to his apartment.
“I told Trish I’d pick up Eddy by eleven or twelve. So I need to leave here no later than eleven fifteen.”
Adrian glanced at the clock that showed nine thirty. They’d spent over an hour at the steak house after they finished their meal, just sitting around talking. Ed was easy to talk to, easier than anyone Adrian could remember talking to in a long time, other than people who were just friends. But the elephant trainer had much more depth to him than Sebastian ever dreamed of having, and he wasn’t as competitive as a lot of his musical friends.
“I’ll see if I can let you go by then.” Adrian turned the dimmer switch on his light just enough so they could see the furniture in his living room, but not enough to kill the romantic mood that had developed over dinner. He walked over and turned on the CD he’d put in the player just in case they came back to his place, as opposed to saying good night at the restaurant. Seconds later, as he walked back over to Ed, soft instrumental music flowed from his surround sound.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” Ed said. He turned his head a bit, taking in the soft shadowed apartment.
Adrian took his hand and led him over to the window. Before them was the Dallas skyline, lit up in all its glory. “I’ve even got a nice view.”
“That you do.” Awe tinged Ed’s voice. “Can’t say as I’ve ever seen Dallas like this before.”
“There are better views.” Adrian slipped his arm around Ed’s waist and drew the man closer.
Ed leaned against him. “But not better people to view it with.”
They stood there for several minutes, just staring out at the view. Ed’s weight against him was relaxing and exciting, all at the same time. Adrian moved his hand up the hard plane of the elephant trainer’s stomach. Even through the burgundy cotton, he could still feel the contours there and wanted the cloth away so he could feel more.
Ed turned in his arms and brought his lips up to Adrian’s. It was a warm, full kiss, much like their first one had been. Electricity ran between them. The sensation was stronger than anything Adrian had ever felt with any of the other men he’d kissed before. He moved his hands up Ed’s back into his short brown hair. A little pressure pushed their lips tighter. A moan escaped Adrian as pleasure surged through him.
He staggered backward a couple of steps as Ed pushed into him harder. Running his hand through Ed’s hair, Adrian moved his mouth away for a second. “Let’s get on the couch.”
“Before we fall down and break something,” Ed agreed, but didn’t move his hands from Adrian’s waist. The flutist stepped backward, carefully maneuvering them around the glass coffee table so they could reach the couch. Ed stumbled against him as they started down toward the warm brown leather. Adrian angled his descent so he ended up under the other man.
“Is this okay?” Ed asked, raising up with his hand on the back of the couch.
Adrian couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be at that moment than under Ed. “I’m fine if you are.” He reached up to pull the man’s face back down to his.
For several minutes, the only movements they made were slight pushing against each other’s lips as Adrian rubbed Ed’s back through his shirt. Then he worked the hem out of the waistband of the khakis so he could reach under and caress the warm skin. Ed moaned into his mouth as Adrian kneaded the strong muscles there, starting at his lowe
r back and working up to his shoulder. The shirt got a little tight as Adrian reached the top of his shoulders. Ed pulled back for a moment.
“Should I take this off?” A slight tease colored his voice. The shadows lay across his face so Adrian couldn’t see the details of his eyes.
“If you don’t, I might rip it off you. Then you’ll have to explain that to Trish and Eddy.” Adrian leaned up and gave him a quick, playful nip.
Ed sat up, still straddling Adrian’s waist. Growing urgency threatened to explode between them. He started with the first fastened button and slowly, almost painfully for Adrian, worked his way down, revealing the massive chest beneath. Adrian reached up before Ed was finished and ran his fingers hungrily through the thick brown hair that covered the exposed flesh.
“You must work out a lot,” he whispered as his fingers played.
As he opened the final button, Ed shook his head. “Nope, I just work hard around the farm. This is all natural.”
“Let’s hear it for nature.” Adrian leaned up and planted a big kiss in the valley of Ed’s chest.
Ed pulled at Adrian’s dark blue polo. “Now you.”
Adrian smiled and kissed him again. “But you’ve already seen me without my shirt.”
Ed pulled it free of his black jeans. “True, but I didn’t get to play with you without it, now did I?” His strong hands found Adrian’s flesh. A shiver shot through the flutist. He yanked his shirt off in a fluid motion and tossed it on the floor. He hadn’t seen where Ed tossed his, but it didn’t matter.
“Is that better?”
In response, Ed bent down and engulfed Adrian’s right nipple with his mouth. He sucked on it for several minutes while waves of pleasure coursed through the flutist. When he released his suction, he looked up and smiled. “Much better.”
Blinking back tears of ecstasy, Adrian grabbed the man’s face and brought it back to his own. He thrust his tongue between Ed’s teeth. He could still taste the steak and beer the man had for dinner. Ed’s tongue rode along his, and the two moist organs battled for dominance of the wet maw. Finally Ed relaxed, until Adrian withdrew his tongue. Then he forced his way into Adrian’s mouth, and the battle resumed.