by Lily Velden
“No. We’ve never spoken since.” Robert’s voice was hard, his jaw tense. “I have no desire to. He doesn’t matter. I don’t need his approval. Besides, Gran had more of everything that counts, including more balls than him.”
“What about your mother?” I whispered. I had to ask. I had to know. Surely his mother wouldn’t have abandoned him? A mother’s love was supposed to be unconditional.
“I see her occasionally when my father is away on a business trip.”
He spoke quietly. Evenly. As if he were making an observation about some article in the local newspaper, but I knew, deep down, their failure to love him unconditionally, as a parent should, had to have had its effect. My heart sank. In that one simple sentence, I heard a life story. It was clear his mother only saw him when she could do so undetected by her husband.
Poor Robert. The pain in my chest was physical. I didn’t need to be a mental-health professional to guess the long-term effects of such rejection. It wasn’t a huge stretch of the imagination to surmise it at least played a part in why he chose to remain single, keeping the men he dated at arm’s length. Thank God, he’d at least had people like Higgy and his grandmother in his life.
“I’m so sorry, Robert.”
“Why? It’s not your fault, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. It is what it is.” He shrugged my words off and changed the subject. “I have so missed a good cuppa. Honestly, how do you Yanks manage to screw up something as simple as a cup of tea? It definitely tastes so much better here.”
I honored his unspoken request to move the conversation to safer, more neutral territory.
I smiled. “Oh, my guess is we were too preoccupied with leading the free world and chasing the almighty dollar. Never got the hang of using a teapot.”
Robert threw back his head and laughed. “Priceless. I love that you can take the mickey out of yourself.”
“Wait till I dazzle you with my, ah, Brit jokes.”
He grinned at me. “I can’t wait.”
I LAY in the guest bedroom’s bed, the dove-gray sheets soft but unfamiliar, wide-awake and hyperaware.
He was down the hall, lying in the bed I’d been sleeping in for the past six months. He was alone… probably in his underwear… maybe naked.
With a groan, I rolled onto my stomach and buried my face into the pillow, pressing my hard-on painfully into the mattress.
OVER THE next few days, we took it easy. Other than going for a lengthy walk each day, Robert mainly stuck close to home and took care of the mundane tasks, like laundry and getting his body clock back to UK time. Each afternoon we’d head down to the Lamb for a pint or two before dinner. A couple of times Higgy joined us, which made for a good laugh, because she and Josie teased Robert relentlessly. I learned some fun facts about his teen years that made me grin but Robert groan.
I was amazed at how many people Robert knew. By the way one or two of the men who joined us for a drink looked at Robert, I suspected they knew him sexually and were hoping for a repeat performance. They eyed me speculatively, clearly curious as to how I fit into the picture. Outwardly, I hoped I looked at them with no more than casual interest. Inwardly, though, I eyed them with envy and resentment. I hated that they knew Robert in ways that I didn’t. Then again, as far as Robert was concerned, it was clear they weren’t special. They were just another trick. As much as I wanted Robert, I didn’t want to be like those men—just another notch on his bedpost. I didn’t want to be someone whose name he struggled to remember.
We had a few awkward moments, like when I, out of habit, accidentally walked into the master bedroom instead of the guest one I now slept in and caught Robert in only his briefs. He’d been unconcerned—I’d been the one who’d felt like my face might go up in flames. Hidden desire, I guess, would do that to you.
Robert too found some things odd, like how relaxed and at home I was in his house. He said as much that first morning, but he didn’t seem put off by it, so I took that as a plus.
I liked sharing a house with him. He was surprisingly easy to live with. It would be great to go traveling with him, but even if we didn’t, even if all we did was hang out together over the summer, I’d be happy.
11
ROBERT WALKED into the kitchen in his pajama bottoms and a plain white tee, yawning and stretching as he approached me. He silently accepted the cup of tea I offered him. Despite the earliness of the hour and his unbrushed hair, he looked positively edible—certainly far tastier than the raisin toast I’d made. He tilted his head to the side, looking me up and down, his gaze speculative… knowing. I swallowed nervously. Slowly, so slowly it was almost excruciating to watch, he raised the cup to his lips and took a leisurely sip. My guilt-ridden belly started tying itself in knots, but just as my paranoia was about to get the better of me and compel me into confessing my sins, he placed his cup on the bench and smiled.
“So what do you think, Noah? Paris in the summer? Can I interest you in the Louvre? The Rodin Museum? What about the Pompidou Center? Or maybe Montmartre? Sacre Coeur? You ready to put up with some rude Frenchmen?”
“Bring it on, Callinan.” I grinned at him, as much in relief as excitement, then bit off a corner of the raisin toast and munched on it noisily.
I was amazed at how quickly he had us organized. Two quick phone calls later, we were booked onto the Eurostar departing from St Pancras in two and a half hours, and into L’Hotel on Rue des Beaux-Arts in the arty district of St. Germain in Paris.
Grinning at me, he said, “Best get a wriggle on, Noah. We hit the frog and toad in two hours!”
I smiled at his use of the English euphemism for hitting the road. It had taken me a while, but I was now quite used to the colorful way the British had of expressing the simplest of actions. Heaven help me, though, if he started using cockney slang—that truly was like a whole other language!
After gulping the last of my coffee, I placed my cup in the sink, then dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, to shower and pack. Excitement, like hot coals beneath my feet, made me grab a couple of towels and race down the hall to the bathroom. I felt like a kid about to embark on his first trip to Disneyland.
Stepping into the hall after the quickest shower I’d ever taken in my entire life, I froze at being confronted by Robert clad in nothing more than his boxers. I lowered the towel I’d been using to dry my hair, hyperaware that the only thing between me and his penetrating gaze was the towel wrapped around my hips. My breath caught, and my heart thundered. A few random droplets of water trickled down my back and chest, feeling cool against the warmth of my skin. I shivered.
My gaze was on Robert’s face, on the half smile tugging at his lips. His gaze followed the droplets trailing down my torso.
He reached out, and my stomach muscles quivered in anticipation of his touch. He pressed his forefinger softly against the base of my belly, half on the towel, and half on my skin. Leisurely, ever so leisurely, he trailed his finger up my body, gathering moisture as he went.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
All I could do was tremble like the shy virgin that in so many ways I still was.
He paused momentarily at the hollow of my throat. The pressure was light, but he might as well have been impaling me with a sword—I was skewered to the spot. When he pulled away it was as if he took my strength with him, and I had to lock my knees to keep myself upright. I watched as he pulled his finger away to hover just beyond his parted lips, before touching the pad with the tip of his tongue. My throat tightened when I saw him close his eyes and tilt his forefinger, bringing it to rest more fully on his tongue before both disappeared inside his mouth. I swallowed painfully around the constriction in my throat when he closed his lips and sucked softly. Languidly, like a movie in slow motion, he finally pulled his finger from his mouth, his lips remaining in a pucker for a few sweet moments longer.
Opening his eyes, he smiled at me. �
�Hmm, yummy,” he murmured before turning and continuing to his room, leaving me standing like a sapling shuddering in the aftermath of a storm.
Did he know? How could he? What if he did? Would he want me?
God, he was so sure of himself. It was sexy. Alluring and exciting too, but also terrifying. The man was beautiful, gloriously so. Same as a bonfire on the beach was beautiful—but like a bonfire, perhaps he was best enjoyed at a little distance. Get too close to the fire and you’d burn. Hell, you’d fry. And as I watched his bedroom door shut behind him, I knew I was already dangerously close to going up in flames.
Paris was looking more interesting by the minute.
IT FELT odd to stand back and let Robert take charge. I was accustomed to being the one people turned to for guidance, to make the decisions and issue the instructions. I was used to leading rather than following, and it took real effort on my behalf to wait patiently while he dealt with the cabbie and the ticket office.
Despite the swarming crowds and lengthy lines, he had us organized and ensconced in our first-class seats in record time. The Eurostar, I learned, was a fast train, chewing up the tracks at 185 miles per hour. According to Robert, we’d be in Paris in under two and a half hours—a fraction of the time it would take us to make the journey had we chosen to drive and take the ferry. Our car was both stylish and plush, with spacious reclining seats that offered plenty of leg room—an essential for Robert with his long legs—and apparently we could enjoy an “at seat” meal service if we chose. Though, as I said to Robert, we’d obviously chosen the wrong departure time had we wanted to take advantage of that particular service, seeing as our speed-demon train would have us at Paris Nord a little before one.
To say I was acutely aware of Robert as he sat with his legs stretched and ankles crossed in a posture mirroring mine was an understatement—it was as if every hair on my body was standing to attention. The ones on my forearm literally did when our arms brushed against each other with the slight movement of the train. I fought the urge to turn and study him. Instead, I kept my gaze firmly on the picturesque Kentish landscape as it rushed by my window. Brief flashes of Robert’s reflection in the glass tantalized me, and he, it seemed, suffered from no such qualms about staring, though I didn’t need my momentary flashes to tell me he was watching me—I could feel his gaze on me as if I were on a stage under a spotlight.
“You look like your photos, and yet… not.”
I turned my head to meet his gaze, my eyebrows raised. “Oh?”
“In real life you look… lighter… happier.”
I looked away. He was too close to the truth. Since the journey of self-discovery he and his home movies had unknowingly sent me on, I’d never felt more self-aware… and yes, lighter. It was as if a burden had been lifted. As if so many long-held questions in my life had finally been answered. The answers might have been more than I’d bargained for, but at least I knew… knew why none of the women I’d dated had ever been able to touch my heart. Why the spark had eluded me. I had yet to figure out why my homosexuality had been suppressed for so long, but that, I was confident, would come in time.
My heart wanted me to reply to Robert by taking his face in my hands and kissing those forever-pouting lips of his until they were red and swollen and then, when they were aching with need, whispering sweet declarations against his heated flesh. My head… my head, though, asked what the point of acting on my desires was when he lived in the UK and I lived in America? To speak of my desires, my feelings… would such confessions lead to anything but heartache? Perhaps better to keep things simple, friendly.
“Must be something in your English air.”
He reached out, lightly stroking my cheek with his index finger, and I froze, my heart taking off at a sprint. All my good intentions of mere moments before were like so many dandelion wishes on the breeze.
“Let’s hope your lightness of being continues on in the City of Light, then.”
I was incapable of answering.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?”
I shook my head. No, he was making me hopeful.
Perhaps that was worse.
MY JAW dropped. I knew it made me look uncultured, but I couldn’t help it. I felt like a kid from the country making his first visit to a big city. I’d stayed at some swank hotels in my time, but none, absolutely none compared with L’Hotel. I’d never seen anything like the circular reception area with its patterned marble floor surrounded by a spiral staircase, let alone their themed rooms. Opulent as an adjective just didn’t cover it.
“I love this place, and I just knew you would too! Did you know Oscar Wilde lived out his days here?”
I shook my head—something I seemed to do regularly around Robert.
“Come on, sunshine.” My gaze locked on his at those words, at that endearment, uncertain if I liked it or not. My bathhouse stranger often called me “sunshine,” and I didn’t want to be anonymous or forgettable to Robert, the way I probably was to my stranger. “Let’s just drop our bags in our rooms and find a great place to eat. I’m starving!”
The next thing I knew we were seated at a small round table in a crowded café, sipping white wine and slurping away on the best onion soup I’d ever tasted. I couldn’t believe how close the tables were to each other, and yet the waiters still managed to squeeze between them with alacrity.
Raising my glass, I toasted Robert. “Thank God for you and your knowledge of the French language!”
Robert gave me what I recognized as being his trademark smile, winking as he downed the remainder of his wine. “Let’s just say I feel inspired!”
We talked and laughed and crowd-watched, and as we finished our meal with a café au lait that made my taste buds hum in pleasure, I realized I was happy. Very happy. Happier than I could ever recall being.
It scared the shit out of me.
I wasn’t stupid. Falling in love with Robert wasn’t smart for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which being we lived on different continents. For a few bittersweet moments, a battle raged within me, my throw-caution-to-the-winds side taking on my more pragmatic one. In the end, I pushed both deep down, to a place where I wouldn’t have to deal with them. There would be time enough for that later.
After a brief friendly verbal tussle, I won the right to pay for our lunch, finding the correct notes without too much trouble.
We strolled through the streets of St. Germain, which had for hundreds of years attracted artists and intellectuals the world over. The likes of Hemingway and Picasso had sat in its cafes, and Alberto Giacometti, J.P. Sartre, and Salvador Dali had wandered its streets. It was the Left Bank’s answer to the famous art district, Montmartre, and like its northern bank sister, it was equally colorful and diverse.
With both of us being art history professors, we couldn’t resist detouring via the famous École des Beaux-Arts, which, three hundred and fifty years after its inception, was still an influential art school. Many of the world’s most celebrated painters had studied within its walls; Monet, Renoir, and Degas, to name but a few. Still, the powers that be of even such a renowned school were obviously not infallible—they’d rejected applications from Rodin, the founder of modern sculpture, three times.
We bought melt-in-your-mouth lemon tarts, which we ate with unseemly haste while sauntering along some of the smaller streets and alleys that were, if anything, more interesting and atmospheric than the district’s more famous boulevards. It was down one such street, in the tiniest gallery I’d ever seen, that I bought a charcoal nude of a male torso. The model’s build reminded me of Robert, and though I knew it wasn’t him, it would be something I would always have to remind me of this holiday spent with him. Feeling Robert’s intent gaze on me as I paid for my purchase made my stomach muscles quiver and my hands shake. I hoped neither he nor the gallery owner noticed.
Our journey back to the hotel was a leisurely one, with many pit stops and detours. I couldn’t remember a time I’d felt so r
elaxed and at ease. Conversely, I also couldn’t recall ever having felt so aware of the presence of another person as what I did with Robert. It was as if all my senses were attuned to him. I didn’t even need to be looking directly at him to know exactly where he was in relation to myself. It was as if I could feel and hear his every breath.
My only frustration was he hadn’t touched me since his stroking of my cheek on the train. He’d stand so close to me I could feel the heat of his body, but his hands never sought me. He’d been attentive, his gaze appreciative, but he hadn’t even so much as brushed up against me all afternoon. His refraining from physical contact made me realize how much I wanted it. I wanted him to touch me.
Back at the hotel, he walked me to the door of my room, and as I turned to face him, ready to invite him inside, I choked on my words. He was looking at my ass.
At my turn, his gaze landed on my groin, where it lingered before traveling up my torso. He took his time. My God, did he take his time—it seemed to take forever before his gaze met mine, and by the time our gazes finally locked, I was trembling with need and silently screaming at him to just take me and fuck my brains out.
He smiled, totally unrepentant at being caught checking me out.
“Meet me in the lobby at half six. Dress smart, and don’t be late. I have a surprise planned for you.”
And then he was gone, and I was left to practically fall into my room, swooning. Whoever had first coined the word “swoon” knew what they were talking about. It was like sway and woo and loon all rolled into one—and described exactly how I felt: like a besotted, unsteady on his feet, starry-eyed lunatic, drunk on love.
His look told me he found me attractive. The knowledge thrilled me but also terrified me. If I allowed myself to succumb, as my body so desired me to, I knew it would be at the cost of what little remained of my heart that I hadn’t already handed over to him. Of course, he had no idea my heart was his for the taking, as well as my cock and ass.