He shook his head as he closed his hands over hers. “I figure you had your reasons. I’d like to hear them, if you’d like to tell me. Say, over dinner tonight?”
She bit her lip. “You want to take me out on a date?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, his voice low and earnest. “And not ’cause I think I’m gonna get lucky, ’cause I’m not expecting anything like that, really I’m not. Just … you know, dinner, maybe a glass of wine, a little conversation. I, uh … I have an idea I’d like to run past you.”
“An idea?”
This time he bit his lip. “I was gonna wait till tonight, but …” He shrugged. “What the hell. I know how much you love Canandaigua. I was wondering if you might want to come up and spend the summer there.”
“W–with you?”
He nodded. “I’ve got a place right on the water, and it’s 10,000 square feet, so you’ll have all the privacy you want if that’s an issue.”
“Ten thousand square feet?” she exclaimed.
His smile was disarmingly ingenuous. “I built it myself. It’s post-and-beam with fieldstone—”
“Ten thousand square feet? What are you, one of the more obscure Kennedy cousins?”
“You ever hear of Brix and Stones dot com?”
“That website where people can design and build their own dream houses? Didn’t it just go public? I was reading in Newsweek where the guy who founded it, some architect, how he really …”
Rob was smiling.
“… cleaned up,” she finished in a small voice. “Oh, my God. You’re …”
“The Brix and Stones guy – Robert Brixton, at your service. So, what do you say to a nice, relaxing summer on Canandaigua Lake? Although I’m not gonna lie to you. When it’s time for you to come back here at the end of the summer, I’ll probably make a fool out of myself trying to get you to stay.”
“I’m not coming back here, Rob. I gave my notice Monday and applied to schools upstate.” She paused, a smile tugging at her lips. “One of them’s in Canandaigua.”
“Seriously? That’s excellent!”
“I’m … not so sure,” she said.
“What do you mean? All the pieces are snapping into place.”
“That’s kind of the problem. I have a baabit of falling head over heels for the wrong guy and ending up in a serious relationship that’s only really serious on my end.”
“Funny, I don’t feel like the wrong guy, if by ‘wrong guy’ you mean some douche who laughs when you cry during Casablanca.”
“You’re not. You’re not like that at all. I didn’t mean that.”
“Then what? You think I’m not as serious about you as you are about me? Seems to me you’re the one who withheld her true identity from me and made me hunt her down like she was America’s Most Wanted. I, on the other hand, am practically begging you to come spend the summer with me – and hopefully a lot longer, if this thing between us is the real deal. And it sure feels like that to me, even if it doesn’t to you.”
“Are you kidding?” she asked with an incredulous laugh. “I’m crazy about you. I’m just, you know, trying not to get hurt again.”
Sobering, he said, “I get that. Look, we can take it slow; we can have any kind of arrangement you want. Just ’cause you’ll be living in my house doesn’t mean you can’t have your own room. Hell, you can have your own guest wing. I just want to be with you. I want the chance to prove to you that I’m nothing like those other guys. We can wait as long as you want to, you know.”
“Wait?” Marianne said. “I’ve replayed the other night in my mind about a million times since then. If there weren’t a couple of dozen kindergartners watching, I probably climb over this fence right now and jump you.”
With a laugh, Rob said, “Oh yeah, I think this is going to be an excellent arrangement.” Reaching through the chain link, he ran a finger lightly across her bottom lip. “You really do have a very pretty smile,” he said softly. “I’m never gonna get tired of looking at it.”
We Were Lovers Once
Madelynne Ellis
We were lovers once …
I know that Ray is gone. I feel it inside me, as if a tight choking grip has suddenly been released. I knew it before the phone rang and a lady with a voice like splintered glass told me so. Twenty-five years. I hadn’t seen him in twenty-five years and still I knew the moment he passed. It was as if in that moment all the bonds we’d formed were suddenly ripped away. And yet, I’m standing here in my black garb and sensible old lady shoes having read the numerous cards that adorn the wreaths and he’s standing right in front of me, just exactly as I remember him – a pretty youth, sultry and self-possessed. Dark unruly hair casts shadows across his narrow face and partially masks the hypnotic silver of his eyes. He’s slightly uncomfortable in his pinstriped suit. It’s not black, I note, but dandyish navy blue with a black band around the sleeve. Ray would certainly have approved, particularly of the starched white handkerchief that peaks suggestively from the breast pocket.
“Mrs Melrose, it’s so nice to meet you at last,” this oddity extends a hand encased in black leather. Murderer’s gloves. Ray always wore gloves in public too. He hated people touching his skin and leaving microscopic traces of themselves behind, as if such contact could somehow detract from his genius.
Ray was a genius, and a menace. And I loved him, for all his quirks and foibles, but like everything that burns so brightly, the passion between us was never destined to last. Ours wasn’t a relationship built over time and mapped out over decades, merely a magnesium flare in the dark ds of our fading youth.
I stare at this stranger with the sun blazing behind him, and I see Ray as he was years ago standing under the unforgiving blaze of a fluorescent strip light, while mist coiled around his shoulders from the steam-filled bathroom beyond.
We’re in his apartment. What did we come back here to do? The details escape me, and my absent-mindedness leads me to drop the popcorn I hold within my hands, whereupon it scatters across the coarse woven carpet. I recall the film. How we sat side by side in the darkness, never touching as sounds and images bombarded us in an endless violent montage, and the gore washed over me as I sat captivated by the rise and fall of Ray’s chest.
I’ve never wanted any man as much as I wanted Ray. Lust has never since bound me so tightly or ridden me so cruelly. I’ve never desired to possess anything so much as I desired to own him.
Ray’s torso is bare and his trousers ride low upon his hips, so that every ripped muscle of his abdomen is perfectly displayed. I stand stock-still, in my 1980s post-punk chic, laughably out of my depth, with a man who is my mentor and my god, and whose floor I’ve just covered in sticky popcorn. He should be the older man, suave, sophisticated, a James Bond fantasy come to life in order to seduce me, but Ray is none of those things. He’s still barely a man, four years younger than I am and in a position of power far beyond either of our years. He laughs at the mess, and swipes at the kernels stuck to his toes.
“I’m going to freshen up. It’s been a long day.” Still sporting a grin, he wafts me towards a seat. “Make yourself at home.”
Twenty-five bars of Caramac are neatly stacked upon the table. I open one, when he retreats into the bathroom, and wolf it down. I’m too on edge to sit. Instead, I pace and gnaw upon my fingernails, chipping the paint I so carefully applied three hours before. With each successive lap of the room I draw a little closer to the bathroom door, until I’m stood before it, and the image of him naked beneath the shower spray is so clear that I believe I have X-ray vision and can see through the wood.
I don’t knock. I walk into the steam-filled bathroom fully clothed. My vision of him glittering with water droplets, completely nude is an unfortunate fallacy. All I can descry though the misted glass are shifting peach-toned shadows.
“Sophia, is that you?” There’s little surprise in his voice, only a dash of laughter, which continues to purr in his throat when I throw open the shower cubicle do
or and climb in beside him. “You’re all wet!” He traces a finger down the row of pearlescent buttons on my blouse. “Were you looking for the shower or the launderette?”
“You.” It’s the only word I can muster and sounds so husky it’s a wonder he doesn’t ask if I have a cold.
“Guess you’re in luck. And now you’ve found me?” A bad boy gleam lights in his silver eyes. Instead of waiting for a reply, he turns his back, and then peeps coyly over his shoulder at me in order to pass the soap. “I reckon you can do the honours.”
I take the square, off-whitish bar and sniff it suspiciously, my heart clenched impossibly tight within my chest. I have him cornered, and I’m already afraid of losing him. Instead of soaping his back, I stand with my elbows locked tight to my sides and turn the soap over and over in my hands until they are covered in a foamy lather.
It’s then that Ray touches me. His hands lock around my wrists, and I realize that the pain I feel now will be nothing compared to what comes later, but that is still preferable to the hollowness of living without him.
“Stop thinking and act. You live too much in your head. You need to connect with the reality around you.”
I need to connect with him. Temptation stares me in the face.
“Touch me.” He places my hands upon his chest and sets them into motion, drawing concentric circles on the smooth slabs of muscle. I skirt around his tiny tightly puckered nipples, while he stands in perfect mock submission, his hands raised and pressed to the tiles at shoulder height. Nerves itching with suppressed desire, I hesitate over dipping any lower than his navel.
My clothes grow heavy with the weight of the water, until the hem of my skirt is distorted and my blouse sticks to my skin as transparent as cling film. Embarrassed, unused to being exposed, I try to tug it away from my breasts, but only succeed in having it inflate like a balloon. Why are all the insecurities and guilt about this mine? He’s naked and I’m fully clothed. I should be in a position of power. What does it matter if he can see the outline of my bra?
“You’re such a voyeur,” Ray teases. He raises his hands and poses with them clasped above his head. “Art isn’t only about looking. It’s about contours and planes, contrasts and textures.” His words as ever plant visuals in my head. I imagine him streaked with paint: vibrant carnelian, deep viridian, black and azure. He rolls across a huge canvas, giving himself up entirely to the painting, so that sunshine yellow mats in the close-cropped hairs around his groin, and his glossy black hair becomes streaked with silver. “You know, if you’re ever going to get anywhere, you have to seize opportunities.”
I do just that. I trace lower and lift his wet, slumbering cock.
“There is some drive in you,” he laughs. “Suck me.” His pose of submission transforms in the blink of an eye. Hands upon my shoulders, he forces me on to my knees, and presses his soft cock to my lips until I welcome him inside. He tastes of salt and soap, and I revel in my submission, until he grows hard and the forces of his thrusts drive me off balance and up against the glass door. I wait for him to leap, to tear off my clothes and transform into the rabid beast he’s rumoured to be. Instead, he offers me a hand up and leads me from the shower.
Under the flickering electric light, he peels the layers of clothing from my skin until I stand before him completely naked. His cock is hard now. It stands tall and I try to commit its varying hues to memory.
“See with your mind. Not your eyes.” He drags my gaze up from his genitals, and rubs his thumb across my parted lips, before pushing it inside my mouth to suck like a miniature cock.
For several minutes we stand there, me sucking, him watching, until he draws the saliva-wetted digit down over my chin to my bare breasts. The touch is electrifying. I jolt when it reaches a nipple. I’m all his, and he knows it.
“I’ll paint you,” he announces. No, “can I” or “if you don’t mind”, just a statement of intention. I don’t know if that’s down to arrogance or dominance. It’s immaterial since the concept gives me a massive thrill. To pose for him is an honour.
Ray lures me into the living room and pushes me down upon the popcorn-covered carpet. It’s a curious backdrop to be sure, but Ray’s work often strays into the avant-garde. He gets a paintbrush, but no water or acrylics. Instead he draws the sable bristles down the length of my body and dips it into the thick arousal between my thighs, before using it to draw explicit doodles upon my stomach. Dip and paint, he works quickly, only infrequently sparing a flick of attention for my clit when he pauses for thought. “Turn over,” he says, rolling me as soon as the words are spoken.
On all fours now, I present him with my naked rear, perhaps, my loveliest asset.
Ray casts aside the paintbrush. His next sketch is drawn with a different pen. The tip of his cock caresses the taut muscles of my rear, and I crane my neck to watch him work, so precise even with these mock instruments. When the thread of pre-ejaculate dries up, he dips his cock into my inkwell and starts over. And so the first sex we enjoy together is disjointed and yet more arousing than all the stealth fucks I’ve enjoyed in the dark. Ray stretches out our pleasure, until my nerves are in shreds and arousal drips from every pour. Two thrusts and a tickle, it’s never enough. “Fuck painting,” I want to yell. “Fuck me.” I ache and grind my sex against my hand, coming twice in that way long before he finishes his drawings and buries himself deep in my cunt.
“Mrs Melrose.”
Ray walks me home, and it’s not until I lie in my bed that I realize that not once did he kiss me. Not once did he ever kiss me.
“Mrs Melrose.”
“Mrs Melrose,” the past life image says, breaking the memory spell. I give a small gasp and stare at his cascade of dark hair, shocked to find I’m still at Ray’s graveside and the warmth of his presence is long flown. “Are you all right?” Ray’s double reaches out to touch my shoulder.
“Perfectly.”
The past seemed so real, that for a moment reality seems disjointed.
“I’m so pleased you came. Ray wanted you to be here.”
I believe my stillness in response to that unnerves him, for he runs a finger around the inside of his shirt cuff, where the skin is surely warm and throbs with his pulse. Though, perhaps it isn’t me he’s unnerved by, but the grey shadows huddled around the embankment of flowers. A graveside is no place for his vibrancy and youth. He sees the people and the flotilla of carnations and surely recognizes them as the ghosts of his future. I turn away, in no mood for niceties, wanting only an escape from the memories that slide over one another like tectonic plates. It’s time I returned to my cats and my books and my Women’s Institute agendas.
“Wait!” His gloved hand cups my elbow, and again I’m forced to look him in the eyes, Ray’s eyes. “I’m going over to the studio now, one last visit to say goodbye. I wondered if you’d like to come along.”
The touch shocks me so much it sends a pulse of heat through my body. I stammer awkwardly for several seconds, trying to say no. I left Ray and all his foibles behind long ago. There’s no need to go back and revisit what is already done. “You can say too many farewells.”
He nods, but refuses to release me. “Then come with me and hold my hand, because my loss is far more recent.”
I mean to refuse, but the way the words catch in his throat brings the sting of tears to my eyes. I haven’t cried in years. I never cry any more. “Who are you?” I demand.
“Gabriel. I’m Gabriel Hawksmore.”
He’s Ray’s son. Of course, he’s Ray’s son. I didn’t even know Ray had a son. “Is your mother the woman who phoned?”
“That was Aunt Claire. My mother left when I was three.” I don’t enquire too deeply into his definition of left; whatever interpretation it surely spells tragedy.
“Will you come?”
I nod, and let Ray’s protégé lead me.
I’m going back. My God, I’m going back.
The last time I saw Ray, he threw me from this place in
little more than a gymslip and a camisole, my shoes rolling down the stairs behind me. I’d fallen from grace, and had been summarily banished. As if I gave a damn what he thought, or so I told yself and anyone else who would listen. I’d already made other arrangements, was headed for a life with someone who appreciated me, who offered marriage and stability, not an on and off relationship built on torment and ego stroking.
Slanted light from the skylight shows up the butterfly dance of the dust motes as Gabriel prowls across the pitted wooden boards of the garret studio. There’s a certain familiar swagger to his gait as he grasps a large frame propped against the back wall and swings it around. I stare at the colours in disbelief, dazzled by their vibrancy – splashes of orange and violet, and a broad rainbow of creamy pearlescent flesh.
Twenty-five years ago I stood here and posed in that dress. I run my hands over my body recalling how the vivid violet fabric fanned out from my hips, and how I was so in love with the orange blooms dotted across the front.
“My Sophia”, the painting is called, which depicts me rudely displaying my bottom in order to show the criss-crossed red welts left behind by his belt. I had no idea that he’d finished it. In truth I thought he’d probably dowsed it in alcohol and set it alight the night I left.
“You haven’t changed,” Gabriel remarks.
“Oh, but I have.” Although, perhaps I’ve weathered a little better than most.
Gabriel lets the painting fall. When I jump, he grabs me, and his tongue, hot and invasive fills my mouth.
“Get off!” Shocked by his actions, I tear at his jacket lapels, but he only kisses me harder, until I feel it, a tiny long dead spark of arousal, which flickers into life and grows brighter, until instead of resisting, I’m responding.
Gabriel’s gloved hands slide down my back. “I’ve wanted to see this image made flesh ever since I was old enough to understand its significance. What did Ray use to stripe you with?”
The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance Page 21