by Dev Bentham
I glanced back down at the blanket. “It looks the same.”
He set the platter down on top of his bureau. “I can tell the difference. I keep it on my bed to remind me of everything I lost. And to keep me from losing even more.”
Losing even more. Like his hotel. I stared down at the blanket, a perfect replica of my silly joke gift. My chest ached. Why hadn’t I pulled him back into the apartment that night, wrapped us both up inside the ridiculous fleece, and found a way to save him? Save us.
Martim softly touched my chin and lifted my head. I didn’t want to meet his gaze, afraid of what I’d find—anger, condemnation, recrimination? I deserved all that and more for kicking a twenty-year-old kid to the curb on a cold night and not letting him back in.
“Sean.”
I looked up. He gazed at me with those kind eyes.
He whispered, “I’m very sorry that I hurt you.”
“Don’t. Don’t apologize again.” I held his gaze. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”
His thumb scraped against stubble as he rubbed my chin. His eyes were sad. “God, I’ve missed you.”
The feeling was like a cliff crumbling beneath my feet. I couldn’t hold back anymore. Wrapping my hand around the back of his neck, I pulled him to me. There was nothing gentle about our first kiss in years. Our mouths met with instant, breathtaking hunger. He tasted sweet from the pastry, and underneath that was something so soul-deep familiar that I groaned. The muscles of his back were firm and warm under my hands—more solid than I remembered—he wasn’t a skinny kid anymore but a filled-out, healthy, all man—
“No.” Martim pushed me away. He took a step back, his hand on my chest.
I blinked, realization and embarrassment swamping over me. “Oh God. I’m sorry. I thought—”
“Shh.” He clenched my shirt. His gaze burned into me. “Don’t. I need to tell you something.”
My mind whirred as I waited for him to continue. He didn’t think of me that way anymore. He was involved with someone. We’d been apart too long. It was my job, what I was doing to his family, the immorality of my whole existence. How could I be attractive to him like this? None of the possibilities my brain tossed up prepared me for what he actually said.
“I’m being treated for hepatitis C.”
“What?”
His shoulders slumped. “I should have told you earlier. I know. But I didn’t want you to look at me like I was sick or defective.”
I sank onto the bed, trying to take it in. Hepatitis C was something that hard-core drug users and prostitutes got. Not men from prominent families who’d gone to Harvard. Even if they were drug users or—I quickly shied away from that thought. I looked up at him. “How long?”
“It’s hard to know.” He sat down on the bed. “When I was using, I wasn’t going to the doctor. I’ve had it long enough for my liver to be damaged but not yet seriously. Which is good but also means the government wouldn’t pay for the treatment.”
The six inches between us might as well have been a mile. “I thought that was one of those things like herpes, that’s incurable.”
“This is new. Very expensive. And my particular strain requires me to be on the medication twice as long. I will give you the receipts, and once you have those and the bill for my stay in rehab and the hotel remodel, the books on Tia Bel’s loan will balance.”
I stared at him. The hole in the budget was over 150,000. “Is it working?”
He shrugged. “I am four months into a six-month regimen of pills that are worth more than gold. The medicine has a 95 percent cure rate. So far it looks good. My viral load is low but still detectable. It is impossible to know if I will be the unfortunate one in twenty.”
He looked healthy, fit, in much better shape than he’d been in college. Better shape than me for that matter. How could he be sick? Liver damage. The thought was terrifying. His hand rested on the bed between us. I covered it with my own. “Let’s hope you’re one of the lucky nineteen.”
“Yes.” His expression serious, he searched my face. I had no idea what expression he was hoping for. “It will be months before I can be sure.”
He was so beautiful. I tried a half smile. “You can’t be too contagious or you wouldn’t have let me kiss you.”
“No. Kissing is okay.” He cocked his head to one side. “It’s in my blood. Nothing else. But I remember how worried you’d get of contagion when I had a cold. I should have told you before….” He looked away.
God, I was a prick. Always had been.
“Hey.” I touched his face to get him to turn back toward me. When he did, I caressed his cheek. “I hope I’ve grown up a little since then. Let me kiss you.”
His lip twitched up on one side. “Taking a walk on the wild side?”
“I’m not as stuck in my ways as you think.” But when I kissed him this time, I didn’t try to devour him like I had before. I held back, as if I could hurt him by moving too fast, or was I worried I’d catch it if I pushed? Still, his lips were sweet against mine. He stroked my back gently at first. I inhaled the spicy, familiar, intoxicating scent of him up close, so close.
We fell back on the bed and lay side by side with our lips welded together. He pushed his tongue into my mouth. I paused a moment, unable to keep from thinking of the viruses coursing through his blood vessels just under his skin. And then the dam of need that had been building for two weeks, for years, broke in me, and I responded, kissing him back with an intensity I hadn’t remembered I had.
Martim groaned. The bedsprings beneath us squeaked as I pulled him on top of me. I spread my legs, and he dropped between them, as if only hours had passed since the last time we made love. I gasped as Martim ran a finger over my nipple, the sensation sharp through the fabric of my shirt. I clutched his ass through his pants, pulling him closer and grinding my cock against him. Outside a bell rang and a tram screeched along ancient tracks. Inside, the bed creaked and our breaths huffed. Martim thrust his hands under my shirt. He broke the kiss for long enough to help me out of it and to toss his own aside. Then he was on top of me again, skin against skin. I wanted to stop, to take the time to look at him, mark the way his body had changed over the years, but the blood pounding into my cock was like a drumbeat getting faster and faster, and there was nothing to do but ride out the sensation of the slide of our skin slick with sweat and his fingers on my nipples, knowing exactly how to squeeze, when to let go. My mind was filled with images of us before and now, blending together, melting into one another.
I unsnapped the top of his slacks. The zipper opened as I slid my hand inside. His cock was hard and hot. It fell into my hand like it belonged there. Martim paused. He started to pull back but I held him where he was. My heart ached at the thought of his mouth leaving mine. It had been so long. Too long.
Two men passed under the window, arguing loudly in Portuguese. Martim groaned again, shifted to one side, and within moments his hand grasped me, jacking me in perfect rhythm. I held Martim with one hand, my other on his ass, pulling him into me. My ass clenched and unclenched, and I stroked his cock. My hand was slick with his precome. I inhaled the smell of his sweat. His tongue thrust deep into my mouth. Like a cock. I wanted his cock in my mouth and my ass like I had never wanted anything before. His hand flew as he made me want even more. I ground up into him, ready to beg, to pant. Martim broke our kiss. His breath puffed against my neck.
He brought his lips close to my ear. His grip tightened on my cock as he whispered, “I am fucking you.”
The image, the memory, the need shot through me like a bolt and I was coming hard, shooting into his hand. I muffled my shouts by burying my face against his shoulder.
Martim talked me through, pulling out the last possible shudder of my orgasm before whispering, “Yes. That’s good.” He thrust into my hand, hard. I held on tight, letting him imagine himself buried deep in my ass.
I let my voice drop into the register he’d always gotten off on. “Fuck me.”
He groaned and let go, bracing himself on his arms and pounding into my hand. He looked magnificent, like a young stallion, sleek muscles bunching and stretching. Two more strokes and he thrust hard. He held my gaze as his cock pulsed in my hand. I held my breath as if that would let the moment go on forever.
Of course it didn’t. Martim collapsed onto the bed beside me. He rolled over onto his back, catching his breath. The pounding in my ears slowed. I looked down at my hand covered in Martim’s semen.
That itchy, creepy feeling came back. He’d said the virus was only in his blood, but was that really true? I imagined deadly, liver destroying viruses swimming in the fluid coating my fingers. Could it burrow through my skin and get in? I sat up quickly.
“Where are you going?” Martim asked quietly.
“The bathroom. I’ll be right back.” I stood and practically ran from the room.
In the bathroom I ran water into the chipped porcelain sink. It took forever for the water to get hot. I found a nailbrush and soaped and scrubbed my hands under first cold, then lukewarm and eventually scalding hot water. When I thought it had been enough, I shut off the water. But before I reached for the towel to dry my hands, I pictured the viruses buried deep in the crevasses of my palm, in my lifeline or heart line, the creases of my joints. I turned the water back on and thrust my hands back into the stream and scrubbed some more. I told myself I was being silly, that it was enough, and turned off the water. But the itchy crawly feeling came back and I started all over again. I turned the water to scalding hot, hoping that this time I’d get them all.
A floorboard creaked.
“Stop. You’re hurting yourself.” Martim stood in the bathroom doorway, wrapped in the zebra throw. His cheekbones glistened.
I looked dumbly down at my reddened hands. I shut off the water. Looking back up at Martim, I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I disgust you.” He held out my clothes. “You should go.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what—”
He held up his hand. “Please, just go.”
A key rattled in the lock of the apartment door. I grabbed my clothes from Martim’s outstretched hand.
Tia Bel’s voice got closer and closer, chatting to Martim as she walked.
He stood in the doorway watching me dress. My fingers burned as I scrambled into my jeans. I had just zipped them up when Tia Bel appeared behind Martim.
She instantly switched from pleasant Portuguese to angry English. “What is he doing here?”
“Don’t worry. It’s okay.” Martim pulled the throw more tightly around himself.
Tia Bel nudged him aside. She was a small woman, but with her flowing scarves, all puffed up with rage, she filled the doorway. “Okay? This is not okay.” She pointed her finger at me. “You. It isn’t enough you want to take away his hotel, the legacy of his father and grandfather and great-grandfather. But now you come into our home and you use him and you make him cry?”
I held up my red hands. “It wasn’t like that.”
“You think I don’t know when he’s been crying? I have known him since he was a baby.”
“Stop. Please.” Martim spoke quietly.
Tia Bel stopped talking immediately. She turned her focus to him and ran her hand through his hair.
“I’m okay.” Martim looked down at her tenderly. My stupid heart ached with jealousy. “Sean is leaving. You don’t need to yell at him. I am sure he feels badly enough on his own.”
That was true enough.
He picked up my shirt from the floor where it had dropped and held it out to me. “Go now. I’ll come to the hotel tomorrow and we can sign the papers then. Now I’m tired. I’m going back to bed.”
Tia Bel and I watched him walk slowly into his bedroom and close the door. She looked at me.
I held up my hands. “I’m going.”
I shrugged on my shirt, gathered my shoes and socks, and walked quickly through the kitchen and living room. Tia Bel followed behind. She didn’t chastise me again, but she made sure I left. The door closed behind me and I was back out on the street. I sat on the front step and put on my shoes before walking back down the cobblestoned hill. I retraced our steps back to the hotel. An early evening chill was in the air. The rain started when I was halfway back. The other pedestrians opened umbrellas or scurried for cover. I walked on, wishing the rain would wash away the last few minutes and leave behind that golden afternoon. The one I’d thoroughly spoiled.
Chapter SEVEN
I PAUSED at the hotel door, but I wasn’t ready. The interaction with Martim sat in my gut like rotten food. I needed to move, if only to escape myself. Instead of going in, I rounded the corner. The steps stretched up the hill. Maybe if I climbed them, I could hit Reset on the whole afternoon. I ran up the first ten but had to slow down after that. By the time I got to the top, my quads burned. My gut still ached.
I’d hurt him again. And tomorrow I was set to destroy his world. Like Groundhog Day, I was stuck on repeat.
The stairs dead-ended into a narrow street. Not caring one way or the other, I turned uphill. Maybe if my legs hurt enough, I could ignore the resounding question that thundered in my head—what the fuck am I doing? The fiasco of letting my neurosis get the better of me and humiliating Martim like that had opened a floodgate of self-recrimination. As I pounded up the hill, my whole ridiculous life scrolled out in my mind like a morality play. I’d gone to grad school intent on starting my own business, being my own boss, and making the world a better place. Instead, I was making my living by sucking off the misery of others in a morally corrupt system where only the sharks survived. My love life—no, not love—my sex life was a series of one-night stands that went on too long. Embarrassing forays with younger men who I knew from the start were only interested in having a sugar daddy who worked long hours and left them with plenty of time to pursue other, more interesting entertainments. I lived in an expensive apartment that wasn’t a home, and I didn’t even have a fucking dog who loved me.
The pity party took me all the way up to the castle. When we’d been there earlier, the line of people waiting to climb the ramparts had extended into the street below. Now even the street artists had ducked out of the rain. I slapped cash on the counter and bought a ticket. It was the only way I could keep going up. And as long as I was going up, I wasn’t heading back down to the hotel and my unsatisfactory, ridiculous, inconsequential, and disappointing real life.
The courtyard below the castle was empty, which was just as well. Martim and I had stood at the retaining wall and gazed out over the multileveled red roofs of the city toward the river and the Ponte 25 de Abril. Standing where we’d stood and gazing out over a romantic landscape wasn’t a scene I wanted to revisit. Instead I kept climbing, through the courtyard, past the coffee shop where the few remaining visitors peered from inside or huddled under the table umbrellas, across the uneven stone walkway, and into the castle ruins where I climbed more stairs, to the top of the wall, then up a turret, until I stood at the highest point and there was no farther to go.
The river was barely visible through the rain, which washed out the signature Lisbon red roofs to pale rust. My clothing hung on me, wet, heavy, and cold. I clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering. I was alone at the top and too chickenshit to truly self-destruct.
What the fuck am I doing?
I mean really, what the fuck am I doing?
Self-pity wasn’t one of my usual vices, and it didn’t sit well. I turned away from the misty view and followed the stairways back down. My job was corrupt, but that didn’t mean I had to be. I’d been thinking like an obedient child. What was the worst thing Rex could do? Fire me? I thought about my sad, sorry life back in Chicago. Would it be so hard to leave? I could always get another job working for another tyrant in New York or London or LA. On the other hand, I could cash out my apartment and start that business I’d talked about years ago.
I stopped, ignoring the rain pounding
on my head and shoulders. I could cash out the apartment. And I didn’t need to go back to the hotel to look at the books to see if it would work. I knew the numbers. I wouldn’t be able to rescue him completely, but I could buy him time.
I checked my watch. Midmorning in Chicago. I ducked under one of the umbrellas in the café and pulled out my phone. There was a call from Rex. Probably salivating over the money he’d make on Martim’s hotel. Fuck him.
Back when the equity real-estate-investment fund had first made the offer on my apartment, I’d said no but saved the contact info. Now I made the call. The agent I talked with was taken aback when I told him I needed 50 percent earnest money in my bank by the end of business today. He said he’d get back to me. I told him I’d wait.
Then I ordered a coffee and sat at a covered table and tried to think up a plan B.
Good thing I didn’t need to. The call came back. They agreed to my terms but would give me 10 percent below what I paid for the place. I gave him the hotel fax number and climbed back down the hill. A hot shower, dry clothes, and I’d be ready to sign.
On the walk down, I called the airlines and booked a flight to Chicago. It would take me at least a week to move out, longer if Aiden hadn’t found a better prospect yet. After that… fuck if I knew. I texted Aiden that he needed to find a new place. Now.
BECAUSE HE ran first thing in the morning, Martim rarely got to the hotel before nine. Knowing that made it only slightly easier to knock on the office door at just past six.
“Entrar,” Tia Bel called sharply. It was a voice that undoubtedly scared the hell out of the housekeepers. I was pretty nervous myself.
I opened the door.
She looked up and frowned. “Martim is not here. Not that I should let you see him.”
“Don’t worry. I’m leaving.” I walked to her desk and held out the stack of papers I’d spent half the night putting together. “Give him these for me, please.”
She eyed me suspiciously as she reached for the papers. I stood there watching her scan them. From above I could see the line in her hair where the gray was growing in. My heart broke a little, thinking about how hard she had been working to hold everything together while Martim grappled with his addiction and then his diagnosis. She should have been enjoying her retirement, not steering a faltering hotel through personal and financial drama.