by Jean Haus
He settles over me, his hands on each side of my head, the tip of him sliding between my legs, making me musically gasp once more.
“Do that again,” he demands in a hoarse voice, sliding over me, and without trying my throat complies. “Damn,” he hisses. “I could probably come at just the sound you make.”
He kisses me hard and fast before positioning himself at my center. I drag in an anxious breath and lift my hips. Closing his eyes, he plunges forward.
“Ahhh…owww,” escapes me in a long wail at the burning sensation. My nails dig into the skin of his arms. I’m not a total idiot. I knew it was going to hurt, but after so much pleasure, the pain is foreign.
Gabe braces himself above me. “What the hell, April?” he says harshly. “You’re a—a virgin?” His tone makes the world foul.
Wiggling my butt, hoping to find an angle of relief, I wince instead of answer.
“Fuck!” He shakes his head as his arms begin to tremble. “We can’t do this.” He shakily pushes up.
I wrap my legs around him, ignoring the pain. “I want this. I’ve wanted this. Don’t stop.”
The skin along his cheekbones tightens as he draws in a deep breath. “Okay, okay,” he says, and I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or to himself. “I’ll try to take it slow.” He draws in another gulp of air and gently lowers himself.
Besides the fact that the pain has dimmed, I’m ready for the burning throb as he moves within me. I keep my breath even as he lowers himself on his elbows and takes my face in his palms.
For several long seconds, he studies me in the dim light, his expression filled with wonder. Finally, he kisses me, slow and sweet and intense. When he begins moving again, the pain is a back note to all the other sensations. The length of his skin aligned with mine. The heat of him. The incredible slide of him inside of me. I’m caught between the passion and the wondrous sense of being this close to someone. I never imagined it would be this intimate. In this moment, it feels like he knows me. I know him. Every little piece.
I open my eyes to find him watching me. Strain and concern etch his face. The concern brings a soft smile to my mouth. He releases a relief filled groan, then lowers his head and slides a hand between my legs. With his mouth on my breast and his fingers moving between us, I can’t concentrate on the lovely intimacy. The building passion takes over once again. The pain is just a small nuisance as I grip his back, raise my hips, and follow the pounding rhythm he sets until I unravel beneath him, sighing out another long music like breath, my thighs clamping around him.
“Fuck!” he whispers, his mouth over my heart, his body shuddering, his clutch on my shoulders tight.
I wrap my arms around him and bask in the intimacy of him orgasming in and above me.
He lays there breathing hard for over a minute, then pushes up, his eyes fiercer than ever. “What the—why wouldn’t you…how the hell were you still a virgin?” he demands in a harsh tone.
Chapter 20
~April~
“Well, ah…” I say, trying to collect my thoughts, while becoming hurt he isn’t on the same cloud nine I am.
Suddenly, a loud blaring horn sounds from inside the apartment. For a split second, we stare in surprise and confusion at one another. Gabe is the first to realize what is going on and scrambles out of bed. Finally understanding the blare is coming from the smoke detector, I quickly wrap a sheet around myself and follow.
The blare of the detector grows as I get in the main apartment.
In the kitchen, inside a cloud of smoke, naked Gabe has the pasta pan under running water in the sink. I get the broom from the side of the stove and knock the alarm down from the ceiling, keeping a tight grip on the sheet. With the loud blare gone, the smoke hanging in the air becomes the next major annoyance. After tightening my hold on the sheet, I open the door and with one hand on the broom, fan air outside.
I’m still fanning air out when Gabe, wearing just his jeans, comes into the living room. “Here let me,” he says, taking the broom.
I rush off to the bedroom and slip on a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. Back in the main apartment, the smoke has dispersed to a slight haze and a strong, burnt smell hangs in the air. The door is closed but Gabe is opening the window above the bookshelves.
The pan of burnt food lies in the kitchen sink full of water and burnt gunk. Knowing Gabe’s huge appetite, I go to the fridge. The idea of cooking seems refreshingly normal after the lustful bizarreness of the evening.
“You like omelets?” I ask over my shoulder.
“You don’t have to cook for me, April. Especially after…I…ah, burned a pan of pasta on your stove.” His tone is harsh. I read his underlining thought, and took your virginity.
I keep piling stuff on the counter. “It’s not a big deal. They’re easy to make, and you haven’t had dinner.” I get a cutting board, a knife, a bowl, and a pan. I’m trying to stay busy, not dissect what happened between us in bed. I want to dissect that later. Alone.
He comes into the little kitchen. “Just let me order something in.”
“This is healthier,” I say in a tense tone, unwrapping a carton of mushrooms. I concentrate on my task, not the chaotic emotions beating through my head.
He steps next to me. “Let me do it then.”
Apparently, the loss of my hymen has made me an invalid. “Gabe—”
“Sit down,” he says roughly. “You are not cooking.”
His tone and the hard lines of his face, tell me arguing is futile. I go sit on a stool at the counter, fuming a bit at his control.
Gabe brings the cutting board over to the peninsula, pours me a glass of wine, and begins slicing mushrooms. Becoming more irate by the second, I glare at him, then the wine. Well, that pill has already been swallowed. I take a large gulp. It’s awful.
He clears his throat and glances up. “So…why me? Why now? Why wouldn’t you have told me before? I—what the hell, April?” he repeats in the same tone as he did in bed less than an hour ago, hacking a mushroom to mush.
I gulp more sickly sweet wine down instead of lashing out at him.
He pauses chopping to stare at me. “April—”
“Stop it!” I blurt, smacking a hand on the counter. “You’re ruining it! It was passionate and spontaneous and wonderful. Quit trying to label it with regret.” I pick up the wine bottle. “I don’t and won’t regret it.”
Apparently collecting his thoughts, he stares at me. Ignoring him, I fill my glass to the brim, hoping that the wine will moderate my ire. He pushes away from the counter, then comes around the corner to take my jaw in his hands. Worry lines his features.
“It was more than wonderful and spontaneous and passionate.” He lightly kisses me. “It was—you were amazing and hot and mind blowing.” He kisses me again. “Better than I’d ever imagined, and I have been imagining.” Another soft kiss follows. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be an asshole. Anger is always my first response.” His thumbs caress my skin before he releases his hold on my face. “It was just a shock finding out about your lack of experience in the middle of my mind being blown by you.”
All warm and fuzzy from his descriptions, I can only nod at his apology.
He goes back around the counter and pours some of the wine in his glass, then smiles at me, raising the glass. “To sharing a bottle of shitty strawberry wine.”
I clink my glass with his, though the list is kind of mute at this point. I got the interview, but I don’t want to talk about that mess right now. The reminder of it has me taking another sip of wine.
Gabe starts cutting a red pepper, his strong hands moving methodically as he cuts.
His apology and sudden patience prompt me to share a bit. “I only had two boyfriends in high school. One for about two months of freshman year, and the other for half of junior year. Perhaps if that relationship had continued…” I watch the pepper become a pile of diced cubes as I reach for the bottle of wine. “I had other hobbies, so boys and relations
hips were always second.”
“What about Romeo?”
I snap up. His eyes stay fastened on the pepper he’s cutting, but from his tone, I get the sense that he has thought about me being with Romeo a lot. I suppose his assumption that the relationship was sexual is natural.
“Romeo and I were never—there wasn’t a spark there.” I take a long drink then set the glass down with a clunk, recalling how much Romeo reminds me of my father. That should have been my first clue that things wouldn’t work. “We get along so well, I think we both expected a lot more than we got. At first, we both chalked up the awkward goodnight kisses as something that would pass as we got more comfortable.” I shake my head at the memory, and my openness—I’d say it’s the wine but being with Gabe brings out my honesty. “They didn’t, and although hanging out together was fun, we did not connect romantically, at all. Eventually, we decided to just hang out.”
He pauses cutting an onion in half to smirk at me. “So I give you that spark?”
My lids lower. “Apparently.”
He smirks wider before concentrating on slicing the onion. “Since high school you’ve only dated Romeo?” he asks a touch of incredulity in his tone.
I shrug. “I’ve been on a few other dates, but college has always been about my future and career instead of partying or dating.”
He chops with a precision that conveys he knows his way around a kitchen. “What were these hobbies that kept you from being a normal boy crazed teenage girl?” He pushes the onions into a neat pile next to the mushrooms and peppers.
“Lots of stuff.”
“Like?”
“Like music,” I say, deciding it’s really not a big deal if he knows I can play.
He pauses cracking an egg at the edge of a bowl. “That guitar in you room?”
“Yeah,” I say, my grip tensing around the glass.
He starts beating the egg whites with a fork. “You should play me something. You have to play something for me.”
“I don’t play anymore,” I say stiffly.
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t.” My tone is icy, but I can’t help it. The reason is off limits. Even in my head. For my own sanity.
He takes a long swing of wine, then cuts butter into the pan and turns on the stove.
“You were good?” he asks, grabbing a spatula.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” The words come out embarrassingly like a plea.
He glances over his shoulder at me.
I look at the counter, at the bright, red rings from the wine and force my mind away from the memories he is bringing up.
When I glance up, he is adding the yolks to the bowl. I take a long gulp of the strawberry wine. Only a teenager would dream of drinking this horrid stuff, but it is making my head feel deliciously light, after all the emotion over the last few days, and especially the last few hours.
Gabe rims the pan with the spatula.
“How’d you learn to cook?”
“My dad cooked at work. He didn’t like coming home and doing it.” He drops veggies into the center of the pan. “Learned by necessity, and eggs are cheap.”
I don’t like thinking about his childhood. It angers me, and because my head is starting to feel like a wad of cotton, I decide to watch him cook. I like watching him. The precise way he moves. The intensity of his gaze while he concentrates. The masculine perfection of him. I sigh, putting my jaw in my hand. He is just so lovely.
I take another drink of wine. It’s actually not that bad, just sort of bad.
Gabe continues cooking, his muscles moving, his face stoic with concentration, and his movements so meticulous, I wonder in another life, one where he wasn’t raised with his father, if he could have had a future in some sport, or maybe the wine in me wonders such things. He adds cheese and flips the omelet over before cutting it in half and serving it on two plates. My eyes are on the huge portion as he sits next to me since the small dining table is covered with notes for my upcoming poster board presentation, handing me a fork.
“It looks awesome, but I can’t eat all of that.”
“Then I’ll finish it,” he says, pouring a bit of wine in his glass, then finishing the bottle off in mine.
With an off kilter nod, I dig the fork in and take a bite. Wow. Best food ever. “This kicks my would-have-made-omelet’s butt.”
Chewing, he grins closed mouthed at me.
I take another bite. Delicious. “How’d you get it so fluffy?”
He takes a sip of wine. “Beat the whites, then fold in the yolks. Saw it on some cooking show once like at three in the morning on PBS—no cable at my house—or some shit and it stuck with me.”
It’s quiet for several long minutes as we both stuff in food. Me like a caveman, him slow and meticulous.
“What else can you cook?” I ask, during a breath of air, not food, thinking of inviting him over more, just to cook, unless…
He taps his fork on the edge of the plate. “Meatloaf, chicken and rice, goulash, homemade mac and cheese, butter and noodles, sloppy joes…cheap shit. My dad tended to spend more on beer than food.”
“Hmm…” Whenever he talks about his dad, I want to punch something—like his dad’s face—especially after more than half a of bottle of crap wine. I concentrate on cutting another piece of the best omelet I ever ate, while mumbling, “Your dad is an asshole.”
Surprisingly, Gabe laughs. “He is.”
“And that’s funny?” I ask, gawking at his laughing mouth.
He shakes his head. “Don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear.”
“Ah, my mother drilled that into me, expected me to act like a lady—her vague yet extensive scale.” I wave my hand in exaggeration at the last word, forgetting there is a large chunk of food on my fork. I drop the piece of omelet on myself. Half goes down my shirt, the other half rolls across my shirt and onto the floor.
Now I laugh. “Oh, I think I’m a bit tipsy.” I stand and try to shake the food out of my shirt. “And greasy,” I add, scrunching my nose at the sensation of slimy bits across my front.
Laughing again, Gabe bends to pick the pieces off the floor. “Go clean up. I’ll get this.”
Grossed out, I nod, then rush to the bathroom. Tipsy and uncoordinated—I’m like a mix of exhausted and buzzed—it takes me two tries to get my shirt off. I almost fall over, removing my pants. Afraid I might break something, like an arm, I take a shower slash bath sitting and kneeling on the bottom of the tub, gripping my body wash and body scrubber. It takes forever to put on my robe that always hangs behind the door, and longer to brush my teeth. When did getting toothpaste out of a tube become challenging?
I practically stumble out of the bathroom into my bedroom, but stop short in the doorway at the sight of Gabe sitting on my bed.
“Hey,” he says, standing. “I was getting worried you passed out or something worse in there.”
“Ha,” I reply in a wince because he’s not that far off. “Um…you staying or something?” I blurt, confused about him in my bedroom.
Almost to me, he stops and runs a hand through his hair. “Well, I’ve been drinking and... I don’t know. I—I just want to hold you.” He says the last sentence like it’s being torn from him.
I want to roll my eyes. I’m guessing he feels guilty. Men and the prized gift of virginity. Yet, even using the door frame to hold myself up—beyond the wine, I’m guessing stress, and probably sex, has me bone tired—I somehow realize that showing my irritation would not be a good idea. And though the idea of sleeping with him feels weird, I also find it intriguing. I’ve never slept the whole night with anyone.
“Okay,” I say, and push into the room. Gabe grabs an arm and helps me to the edge of the bed.
“Got an extra toothbrush?” he asks as I plop down.
I try to think. The image in my head of my bathroom drawer is empty. I’m not very good at thinking right now. “Ju
st use mine.”
By the time, I realize the bed has been made, tug back the covers, and somehow stick my feet and legs between the sheets, he is back helping me and fluffing pillows behind me.
Oh, for frickssake.
I lay back, keeping a calm face. After removing his pants, Gabe slides under the covers, curling his arms around me, turning me halfway over, and molding his body to the back of mine. Well what do I know? Nothing. Because this is not weird. It’s marvelous. It’s cozy. It’s intimate. I like it.
I like it a lot.
I lay there full of tired, buzzed wonderment until a startling concept has me halfway awake. Maybe I like it so much because it’s Gabe, the angry drummer I’ve recently become friends with, who I’m starting to respect and really, really like. And now he’s acting all weird because I was a virgin. Although the sex was surprisingly wonderful, and I really, really wouldn’t mind—actually would love —doing it again, I don’t want to lose him as a friend.
My hands grip the arm around my waist. “Gabe?”
“Hmm?” The sound is a breath on my shoulder.
“I…I don’t want tonight to change anything. I want to stay friends. Just like we’ve been. Okay?” I ask in heavy whisper.
There are several seconds of silence. Finally, he says, “Yeah, okay.”
Relieved, I whisper, “Goodnight,” then fall asleep imagining his arms tightening around me and his face burying into my shoulder.
Chapter 21
~April~
I promised myself that I’d never wear a tiara again.
Yet here I am, my head sparkling, entering an old theater, heading toward the bar, next to Marilyn Monroe—Chloe. Heads turn. Lots of male heads. More for Marilyn, but several check out Audrey Hepburn—me—too.
The venue for the Halloween bash is near Detroit, almost two hours south of where we all live. It’s a big venue. A venue that Luminescent Juliet has played for the last two years, which is why Shush got the job, basically from Romeo’s recommendation. In the mist of cutting another album and working out a record deal, Luminescent Juliet passed on playing the usual gig, but every member is here to see Shush, and we’re all staying in a hotel less than a mile away.