Like Coffee and Doughnuts

by Ellle Parker

  After I got the herbs, tomato sauce, and other ingredients at the grocery store, I stopped off at a small fish market I like. Looking at what was fresh, I picked two kinds of fish, mussels, shrimp, scallops and a big lobster tail to chunk up. I got white wine for cooking, red wine for serving, and a fresh loaf of bread from the bakery. Then I headed for home.

  First, I had to get the fish stock for the Cioppino going. I cleaned the two fish, throwing the heads and bones into a stock pot, then did the same with the shrimp and lobster, adding the shells and putting the meat away for later. I put onion and celery into the pot, ground some pepper on top, and covered it all with water. Then I put it on the stove to simmer. The rest could wait until Seth got there to help.

  Once the stock was well under way, and the kitchen cleaned up, I took a shower and got dressed. I combed my hair, brushed my teeth, even shaved and slapped on a little cologne. I put on black slacks and a thin, gray sweater I think sits on me pretty good.

  As I dressed, it occurred to me that I got a charge out of the vast difference between my style and Seth’s. Something about the contrast between us appealed to me. I didn’t know what, exactly, but I would have been disappointed if he showed up in anything other than a ratty T-shirt and old jeans.

  I went into the living room, turned on the stereo, and put on my favorite Dean Martin CD. I played That’s Amore twice, because I don’t care what anyone says, that’s a hell of a good song. After that, I programmed the player to skip it, because it would more than likely send Seth screaming from the building.

  Around five-thirty, he let himself in through the front door, shoving his sunglasses up on his head and carrying a six-pack of beer. It wasn’t cheap beer this time, it was Corona and he had a lime jammed in among the necks of the bottles. He didn’t disappoint me in his choice of wardrobe, either. His jeans were soft and faded, and his T-shirt had a cartoon bunny with the caption “Hi. Eat me.”

  He paused in the middle of the room and looked me over, then glanced at the stereo, gnawing his lip the way people do when they’re trying not to laugh. I flashed him a smug smile.

  Seth gave me one of his own, which made his eyes sparkle with wicked glee. Without saying a word, he set the beer on the counter and put his sunglasses with it. He came into the kitchen, slammed me up against the refrigerator and kissed me hard and dirty, shoving a thigh between my legs. I returned the favor by grabbing a fist full of T-shirt and wrapping an arm around his waist to pull him closer.

  When we had to break it up for air, he said, “Just checking.”

  “Checking what?”

  “That you haven’t gone completely Martha Stewart on me.”

  “Not completely,” I said.

  He took two beers out of the box and tossed me the lime before putting the rest in the fridge. I took down the cutting board and sliced it into wedges, while Seth hopped up to sit on the counter.

  “Have a good day?” I asked, stuffing a lime into my beer and taking a sip.

  “Fuck,” he said with a disgusted tone. “Ed got it into his skull that he should see how the shop is doing, so I came home to find him crashing around in there rearranging everything. For some reason, he thought the garbage cans should be on the other side of the workbench, then we had to resort all the tools. And on top of that, he made me haul a bunch of shit in from the truck.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “It’s not funny, Dino. I have the shop set up just how I want it, and he gets in there and fucks it all up. Drives me crazy, I swear. I think he’s getting senile.” Seth shook his head and took a long drink of his beer.

  I got the herbs and vegetables from the fridge, and set them by the cutting board, then took a knife and minced garlic while Seth talked.

  “After all that, he wanted to piss around in the office and look at the books and everything. I mean, that’s fine, it’s his business and all, but he gets crotchety about it and the whole thing is just one giant pain in the ass.”

  “That is why I work for myself. I don’t think I could work for anyone else again.” I scraped diced celery off the cutting board into my hand and put it in a bowl, then took a drink of beer and started on the onion.

  “Yeah, well, that’s my goal,” said Seth. “Someday, that old fart is going to realize he’s old, and then he’ll let me have the place. Problem is, I think I get the fuckin’ dogs too.”

  “I like the flat headed one,” I said. “She’s a sweet dog.”

  “Yeah, she’s cool. But Edgar is an irritating lump of shit, and I’d give my left nut to be allowed to drop-kick him over the fence just once.” Seth finished his beer and tossed it in a neat arc, landing it squarely in the wastebasket.

  “You gonna help me out here?” I asked, gesturing to the food on the counter.

  “No, you seem to have it covered pretty well,” he said, leaning back on the palms of his hands. “I’m just here to look pretty.”

  “Fuck that. You’ll look just as pretty opening cans of tomato sauce and getting out a skillet.”

  Seth jumped down and pulled open the drawer underneath the oven. “Which one is a skillet?”

  “A fry pan. Sauté pan.” I turned to look. “The flat one, moron.”

  “Hey, don’t get shitty with me, I’m not the cook around here.” He set the skillet on a front burner and dug through drawers until he found the can opener. I pointed to the cans of sauce, and he started to open them.

  When the onion was chopped, I threw it in with the celery and did the peppers. Seth opened a second beer for himself and sat on the counter near the stove while I cooked.

  I put both butter and olive oil in the pan like my mother used to. When it started to sizzle, I dumped all the vegetables in and gave them a quick stir.

  I handed Seth the wooden spatula and said, “Keep an eye on that.”

  “What’s it gonna do?”

  “It’s gonna cook down a little. Just push it around a few times so it doesn’t burn.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Ah, two feet away. I think you can handle this.” I smirked to myself as I went to chop up the basil, oregano and parsley.

  “Hey, bitch, get in here and cook my damn dinner!” he barked.

  I flipped him off.

  After I threw the herbs in the pan, I added the garlic and a few other seasonings and gave the whole thing another stir with the spatula Seth gratefully handed over. Delicious smelling steam rose out of it and combined with the scent of the fish stock still simmering. Took me right back to my childhood.

  Seth sat there with his beer in his hands, watching with interest. More than once, I could feel his gaze squarely on me, rather than the cooking, and I got a rush from the attention.

  “I don’t suppose you know how to open a bottle of wine?” I asked him.

  “Nope,” he said, taking a swig of beer.

  I turned down the heat under the skillet and got out the wine opener, then put the white wine on the counter in front of me, peeled off the cover, and dealt with pulling the cork.

  Seth grinned. “You know, all this skill in the kitchen, it’s really hot, Dino.”

  “This gets you hot?” I asked, holding up the wine opener and the cork I’d just twisted off it.

  “Yup,” he said, giving me one of those smoky looks of his. “It’s very sexy. I like it.”

  As I said, Cioppino is impressive stuff to make. I poured some wine in the pan with the onions and celery, and added Tabasco and Worcestershire. I mixed everything together and took out another soup pot to put it in. The final step was to add the tomato sauce and let it simmer alongside the fish stock.

  “There,” I said, wiping down the counter and rinsing my hands. “In about an hour we can eat.”

  “Gee, what should we do until then?”

  I moved to stand between his knees, sliding him to the edge of the counter so we fit together nice and cozy. It was awkward and bizarre to be coming on to him, but I wanted to do the evening right, and I already k
new I liked what came next. “I imagine we can come up with something.”

  He draped his arms around my neck, and I leaned in to kiss his throat. He was warm and smelled spicy and clean. I ran the tip of my tongue over his skin, lapping at him as I kissed my way up to his ear. He moaned, and the sound went right to my cock, making me half hard. I’d barely touched him.

  I wrapped my arms around his waist and held him tight, not just because I liked the feel of his body against mine, but because I was overwhelmed by how much I actually wanted him there. I wasn’t expecting that. He hooked a leg around me and moved so he could kiss me on the mouth, lips moving seductively over mine until we were both breathless. I felt light-headed.

  “Dino?” he asked softly, dipping down to lick at my throat.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you going to make me listen to Dean Martin all night?”

  “I might.”

  “You are such a prick.”

  I grinned. “You got something else you want to listen to?”

  He gave me an enthusiastically sloppy kiss and slid down off the counter. While he ran out to his truck to get some CDs, I stirred both the soup and the stock and drank some of my beer. What I was feeling had moved away from my initial panic and was starting to feel like something I could maybe get used to.

  When Seth came back, he was clutching a stack of CD cases that looked like they had seen better days. He headed straight to the stereo. I went and looked over his shoulder while he took out Dean Martin and replaced it with some band I’d never heard of, that had a name I couldn’t pronounce. The music, if you could call it that, sounded like someone knocked over all the garbage cans and stepped on a cat.

  “This is your idea of something good to listen to?” I asked, staring at him.

  “Yeah. This is raw and powerful. It kicks ass and gets me pumped up. Can’t you feel that?”

  “I can feel it making my fillings throb.”

  He shook his head sadly. “We have got to expand your horizons, man.”

  He spent the next hour trying, with limited success. After a while, I checked my watch and said, “You know, I think we could finish the Cioppino just about any time.”

  “Great, I’m starving. It smells amazing in here.” Seth snapped a CD into its case. “I’ll pick some music for dinner.”

  “Ah, no, you will not,” I said, catching his hands and moving him back away from the stereo. “We’re not listening to anything that’s going to ruin my digestion.”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “Not on this I don’t.”

  I put Dean Martin back in, and this time I didn’t skip That’s Amore. Seth rolled his eyes and muttered something I couldn’t make out, but assumed wasn’t complimentary. I smirked.

  “When you do the cooking, you can pick the music,” I told him.

  “It’s a damn good thing you’re as hot as you are.”

  I went back into the kitchen and took the fish stock off the stove so I could strain it. Seth came up behind me and made a face at the bones and fish heads in the strainer. He said, “Dude. Maybe there’s part of this process I didn’t need to know about.”

  “I throw away the fish heads, you know,” I said.

  “Oh, thank God.”

  I laughed at him, and tossed the fish bits in the garbage, washed the strainer and put it away.

  “That’s nothing,” I said. “Wait until I put it all together.”

  I washed the pot from the fish stock and set it on the stove, then combined the stock and the tomato base. The final step, when you add the seafood and pour in a healthy splash of white wine, is the really showy part, and I was pleased when Seth made appropriately admiring remarks.

  “All we have to do now is wait about ten minutes for the fish to cook,” I said.

  We talked about the storefront project while I ripped up the loaf of bread and put it in a bowl. Seth had some ideas about how we could build the walls, and we discussed the layout of the offices. The subject hadn’t come up since the incident in the bar, and I found myself glancing at the bruises on Seth’s face.

  Before long the stew was steaming, and the whole apartment smelled warmly of tomato, herbs, and fish. I got out bowls and ladled the right mix of fish and seafood into them, topping each with a couple of open mussels.

  Seth carried the bowls to the table and came back for the bread. I followed with the red wine and glasses, which I filled. I also put a candle in the middle of the table and lit it.

  Seth shook his head and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “You must really be hoping I’ll put out, man.”

  “Shut up and eat your dinner,” I said, grinning at him.

  I passed the bread, and we had exactly the kind of pleasant meal I’d been hoping for, with me doing most of the talking and Seth doing most of the eating.

  Afterward, we cleaned up, and I poured more wine for each of us. It was getting dark outside, about the time you’d turn on a light if you had anything to be doing that wasn’t romantic in nature. As things stood, however, I was pretty sure that’s exactly what was next on the menu, banged up ribs or not, so I didn’t bother with any.

  I went into the living room where Seth was flipping through CDs, and set his glass down for him. He was reading song titles written on a homemade disk, and showed it to me when I came up behind him. Most of it was decent stuff, songs I’ve heard on the radio. He slipped it into the player and turned to me. Any lingering concerns I might have had about his well being vanished when he ran his warm hands up my chest under the sweater. He tugged on it, and I let him take it off.

  At first I felt ridiculous, standing half naked in the dark with my best friend, but I forgot all that when he mouthed a path along my collar bone, breath hot on my skin. He bit me firmly, then smoothed it over with his tongue. I shivered, and swallowed hard, going hot wherever he touched me. It took me a while to remember I should return the favor. I pulled his T-shirt over his head, dropping it on the couch, and began to slide my hands over his body. He kissed me, and I met his tongue with mine, teasing. I could taste the wine on his lips.

  Pushing me forcefully, he steered me backward to a wide, low armchair and shoved me down into it. He climbed in my lap, and we settled into a tangle of warm bare skin and roaming hands, necking like a couple of teenagers. Before long, I was hard as a rock, and so was Seth. I knew this because he grabbed my hand and shoved it into his crotch, thrusting against me with an eager moan.

  “Shit,” he panted, pressing his face against my neck as I obligingly rubbed his cock through his jeans. “How in the hell do you go so long without this?”

  “I have a very talented right hand.”

  “Yeah?” he said with a grin. He scrambled to his knees, wedging one leg down beside me and resting the other on my thigh. Sitting back on his heels, he popped open the buttons of his fly. “Show me.”

  That was a hell of a sight. Seth Donnelly perched in my lap, half naked, fingers lightly teasing his own cock. He stared at me with unvarnished hunger. I swallowed hard and reached out to touch him, trailing my fingers down the length of his erection. I’d never touched a man like that before and it shocked me as much as it thrilled me. I circled my hand around him lightly, trying to get the feel of doing it for someone else.

  Seth looked down, breathing hard and trying to keep still. He was stroking my wrist and arm like he wanted to make me go faster, but knew he probably shouldn’t. Either way, he was screwed on that score, because not only did I need to figure out a whole new set of bedroom skills, I was also getting seriously turned on by his desperate desire, and I had no intention of giving him any kind of quick release.

  “Christ, Dino,” he said, clutching my arm and rocking his hips into my hand.

  “Did I lie?” I asked, amused.

  “No, you sure as hell didn’t.”

  He leaned forward to brace his free hand on the back of the chair, bringing him close enough for me to kiss his neck. He tilted his head for me, then move
d so he could reach my mouth. His kiss was rough, fueled by need and his attempts to restrain himself. That was a whole new level of hot, especially when I had his bare cock in my hand.

  I did my best to draw it out as long as I could, ignoring his moaning and swearing. This was a side of him I’d never seen before, and I liked it. Eventually, Seth reached the do-or-die point and he wrapped his hand around mine, setting the pace he needed to finally get off.

  “Oh, fuck…” he moaned loudly, burying his face in my shoulder.

  I held him tight against me and squeezed his cock, making him shudder and jerk his hips. He came, wet and warm, over our hands, thrusting forcefully until he was spent. When he was done, he sat down in my lap and leaned against me with closed eyes, breathing hard. I wiped my fingers off on his jeans, and rubbed his arm and his back slowly, earning me a contented smile.

  “Holy shit, man,” he said. “If that’s how you treat a simple hand job, then I can’t wait to try you out on bigger and better things.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that,” I told him, running my hand over his chest. We’d reached the limits of my practical experience of things you can do with a guy, so I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be able to measure up.

  After a few minutes, he slid out of my lap and onto the floor.

  “Hey, where are you going?” I asked.

  “Just right here,” he said, kneeling between my legs and resting his hands on my thighs.

  “Ah. You look good there.”

  He smirked. “This is nothing, wait and see.”

  He tugged me forward in the chair, making me slouch, and reached for my belt buckle. He’s got nice hands and watching them yank it open was hot as hell. That was nothing compared to the first touch of his fingers on my bare cock, though. His grip was warm and solid, and desire curled in the pit of my stomach. I felt my skin flush.

  “Oh my God,” I moaned as he worked me with expert strokes.

  Then to my surprise, he bent down and ran his tongue up the length of my hard-on. I nearly lost it then and there. My mouth went dry, and all I could do was stare. He looked up at me with those blue eyes of his, then took my cock in his mouth. He was as good at that as he was with his hands, and it didn’t take long before I was gripping the chair arms, breath ragged and short.