An Illicit Pursuit (10 page)

I yelp and fist the bed sheets when his
strokes grow faster and more urgent, pushing me close to my climax.
In a second, I feel an intense spasm going off in me, my muscles
clenching wildly with pleasure. I scream uncontrollably into the
pillow and see stars shooting in front of my eyes.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Zach pulls out and
releases his warm load onto my buttocks just before collapsing onto
me. I take a moment to compose myself and catch my breath before
jumping out of bed. Grabbing a bathrobe, I run to the bathroom and
clean myself off with cold water.

When I return to my room, I find Zach
sleeping peacefully in my bed. My heart aches at the thought that
we won’t be sleeping together tonight. Praying to God his father
will recover speedily, I slip under the covers, into his arms, and
close my eyes.

Zach leaves after breakfast; I kiss him
goodbye at the door after ordering him to call me in the night,
though I doubt he’ll be able to follow up on his promise. Then, my
mother drops Mia at school and drives me to the airport. Our
farewell doesn’t go tearfully, because I promise to get tickets for
them for the movie premiere in LA. As she hugs me, she squeezes
money into my hand and then kisses both my cheeks before letting me
go.

Zach doesn’t call me in the evening, neither
the next day. But, I’m not mad at him. I know he loves me and that
he’d call me if he could. I pack my guitar for the private class
I’m going to give to Nikki and Brendie along with some musical
notes I want them to study and go through my clothes. Frustration
washes over me as I see the mountain of the dirty laundry as
opposed to the meager number of clean clothes left in the closet.
After fifteen minutes of futile rummaging around, I finally decide
on a pair of white, mid-thigh shorts and pink spaghetti tank top
and put on a pink sports blazer and flat sandals.

The weather is too hot, and the AC in my car
stopped working a week after I’d bought the car. So I take off the
blazer while driving and put it back on when I arrive at Adam’s
home. When he opens the door for me, I make sure to put a
relatively lengthy distance between us to prevent him from kissing
me. He just scans me up and down—I realize I’d actually prefer a
friendly kiss than him blatantly checking me out—and lets me
in.

I find the girls in the backyard with two
brand-new Gibson acoustics. I wonder whose idea it was. What if the
girls get bored right after the first class? I suppose it’s my job
to keep them interested. They both stand up and greet me with hugs.
Flattered by their warm welcome, I take off my jacket, draw my
guitar out of the case, and get down to the class. Adam doesn’t
disturb us, which is good both for my concentration and that of the
girls.

First, I tune their guitars, while they rub
their fingers with alcohol to ease the inevitable soreness their
fingers will get as beginners. After I make sure their fingers are
all dried up, I talk about the right posture and how to hold the
guitar, something I didn’t mention last time at the party, and show
them an easy chord. They’re both focused, maybe Brendie a little
more than Nikki, but they try equally enthusiastically and take my
suggestions to heart. Which makes me wonder whether they’re really
doing this for fun, or only as part of their education, like school
work.

I pick a popular pop song with easy acoustic
taps to add a little fun to our class. Their concentration is
steady, but I gladly notice their eyes sparkling as they hear the
melody of the chorus from their guitars played by their own
hands—though not perfect. At the end of the session, I videotape
each of them playing, so they have something to compare with later
on when they’ll be—hopefully—much better at it. While they put
their guitars back into the cases, Adam shows up with tall glasses
of strawberry juice, freshly squeezed by him, or so he says, and
pulls a chair next to mine to sit.

“How have they been?” he asks, sipping from
his juice.

“Fantastic, I couldn’t have asked for better
students.” I wink at them. “Hey, why haven’t you joined us?” I ask
Adam.

“Because he doesn’t have sausage fingers.”
Nikki laughs, sticking up her red fingers toward Adam’s face to
tease him.

“I’m not falling for your games anymore.”
Adam shakes his head and then turns to me. “Are you staying for
dinner? Mom and Dad are going out for a date. Adriana and her
husband, too. Eleanor usually goes out clubbing on Friday nights.
We three will be alone. We can watch a movie from Dad’s collection
after dinner if you want.”

“I don’t know.” I look at my watch. It’s just
three. If I go back home, I’ll be bored to death and thinking and
worrying too much about Zach.

The girls insist, so I have no choice but
accept. “What are we eating for dinner?”

“I haven’t decided yet, but I’m open to
suggestions,” Adam says.

“How about pizza?” I look at the girls for
their reaction. Nikki claps her hands, her eyes blinking
eagerly.

“Sure.” Adam nods. “There’s a great Italian
restaurant down the street. We can order from there.”

“I was thinking maybe we can bake it together
instead of ordering. It’ll be a lot of fun. Have any of you ever
baked pizza before?”

“No,” Adam says, and the girls shake their
heads.

“Everything has its first, right?” I gulp
down my juice, as I watch the excitement on the girls’ faces.

We move to the kitchen, put on aprons,
collect the ingredients on the counter, and get down and dirty into
the world of pizza baking. Each of us has a bowl in front of us,
palming, pinching, and punching down the poor dough. It doesn’t
take long before Adam’s face is dusted with flour.

Nikki nudges Brendie’s arm and motions toward
Adam and says, “Someone seems to be kneading with his face,” and
Brendie bursts into laughter. Adam eyes them curiously and tries to
wipe his face with his arm, just smearing the flour all over his
cheeks and on the sleeve of his black t-shirt.

“You look too clean over there.” Adam
splashes a handful of flour at Nikki and Brendie, then at me. Nikki
attacks back with more flour but some lands on my face. I grab the
entire package of flour, taking a step back, and start throwing
flour toward each of them. Brendie jumps to my side, giggling, and
snaps the package away from my hands—what a tiger!—and smashes
handfuls of flour at Adam and me. In a matter of minutes, we all
turn white with dust.

“We need to get the dough ready to rise
before it’s too late,” I urge them to get back to work, trying to
shake off the flour in my hair and on my face. I decide to deal
with cleaning off my body later, when Adam’s eyes aren’t busy with
undressing me.

We go back to kneading, the girls still
giggling, and then place the pieces of dough on the counter to roll
them open. I roll out my dough first to demonstrate, and then they
follow suit. Nikki’s dough is the closest to a circle, Brendie’s
and Adam’s are weird rectangles. I guess Nikki’s love for food is
reflected in her cooking ability.

Side by side, Adam and I chop onion and
tomatoes for the tomato sauce. Since Nikki’s and Brendie’s fingers
are too tender from the guitar lesson, they sit at the dining
table, minding their cell phones.

Adam shoots me a side glance. “It’ll be your
fault if I cut a finger off.”

“Yeah, right.” I grin, looking down at the
onion in front of me. “So, do your parents know about their
problems?” I gesture toward the girls with my head.

He comes closer to me, I guess, to keep the
conversation between us only. Our arms brush, putting me at unease
and breaking my defense mechanism of trying to ignore him. In a
flash, I’m awkwardly conscious of him, of the way his long fingers
round the tomato, how the other one gingerly slices it with the
enormous knife, his arm muscles flexing, and the slow rise and fall
of his bulging chest. His smell, oh, his smell! Soap mixed with
cologne, clean and dizzyingly sexy.

His eyes linger on mine as he speaks. He
speaks? I realize I haven’t registered anything he’s said.

“I’m sorry, what’d you just say?” I ask,
terribly embarrassed.

He shakes his head, smiling, and leans down
to my ear. His warm breath is sending tickles on my sensitive skin.
“Focus or
you
will end up cutting a finger off.” He reaches
his arm over in front of me and grabs a shaker that stands on my
other side.

My nipples may or may not be hardening, but I
feel an intense urge to conceal my chest from his arm that’s only
an inch away from my breasts. And suddenly, I realize how little my
tank top is covering. Only half of my breasts! How tacky of me
showing a nearly full cleavage, and then getting annoyed at him for
hitting on me.

To escape the sexual tension building between
Adam and me, I go through the enormous and filled-to-the-brim
fridge to look for toppings for the pizzas and fill my hands and
arms with shredded chicken, mushroom, fresh basil, and Italian
sausage, and three types of cheese. I’d dream of such a fridge back
when food was my only comfort. Now my comfort is Zach, though he’s
temporarily unavailable.

Adam calls the twins for help, and we begin
adorning the pizzas, all the while Adam’s shooting me seductive
glances. Every part of him oozes raw sex, and he doesn’t shy away
from adding more to it with his stares. Only, I’m not upset with
him. Whatever is going on between us is entirely my fault. He
wouldn’t be able to come this far had I declined him at the
beginning. Yet, here I am, flirting with him, involving myself in
his family issues, charming them as much as being charmed by
them.

When we’re done with the pizzas, Adam places
them carefully into the large oven.

“Someone is at the door.” Nikki’s words pull
me back to reality. Both girls leave to get the door, while I run
to the sink to wash my hands and wipe the flour off of my face,
chest, and arms.

Murmuring voices coming from the living room
make me stiff, and before I know it, a man that I swear must be
working as a fashion model enters the kitchen and gives Adam a
sideways hug.

“Hey, man, where have you been? Thought you’d
never come back,” Adam keeps on patting his friend’s back awkwardly
even after their embrace is over.

“I would have stayed longer, if it wasn’t for
my mother. You should see the girls there—” his friend cuts his
sentence in the middle, as soon as he notices my presence. “Oh, hi.
I’m Jack. You must be Pat. I’ve heard so much about you.” He walks
toward me, a shy grin spreading across his pale, plump lips.

“I can’t say the same about you.” I shoot a
narrowed-eye glance at Adam’s side, before I stretch my handout to
shake Jack’s. He’s everything Adam is not. He’s as blond and fair
as Adam is dark; laid back and friendly as Adam’s constant
assertive and dominant attitude; and slim as Adam’s muscled torso.
His posture is so noble I can’t help but suspect he’s part of a
royal family somewhere in Europe. He’s beautiful, almost too
beautiful to be straight, and it raises my curiosity about his
sexual preference. He’s wearing a stripped, blue shirt with a pair
of fitted blue jeans that bring out the strange green of his
eyes.

Adam stands between us, places his hand on
Jack’s shoulder, but doesn’t dare to touch me. “My mistake. Jack is
the one who arranged the audition with Harvey Duke at Diamond
Records.”

My eyes widen with surprise. He’s not just
beautiful but good-hearted, too? “Really? Thanks a million.”

“How did it go?” he asks with a genuine
interest reflected his expression.

“It went great, but they haven’t called me
back yet.”

Jack nods, frowning a little, his striking
green eyes sparkling as they move in their sockets. Wow, I can keep
on staring at him all day long as if he’s a Monet. He puts his
hands into his pockets and shrugs. “It’s probably their crazy
schedule, but I’ll make sure to look into it.”

I wave at him and shake my head no, feeling a
little too comfortable considering he’s just a stranger.

Adam excuses himself to get changed into
clean clothes, leaving me alone with Jack in the kitchen. I use his
absence to solve the mystery about Jack’s sexual orientation. Not
that I’ll make a move on him, if he turns out to be straight, or
try to set him up with a friend. Just to make sure a man as
beautiful as he is can be straight, too. So, I use the universal
gay-or-straight test and lean forward over the counter, resting on
my elbows and generously presenting my half-bare chest to his
view.

My test is giving me immediate results,
because his eyes move downward automatically and he snaps them back
to my face, blushing instantly along the way. “I’m sorry, I didn’t
mean to.” He’s checking up my breasts and apologizing for it? No
man does that, not even my step-father, who I have no doubt is in
love with my mother.

I jolt up, ashamed of my silly behavior. “My
fault. I didn’t realize…” Stupid liar! At least finish your
sentence.

He slides a hand out of the pocket of his
jeans to scratch his forehead. “Adam is really into you.”

I drop my eyes to the counter, unable to look
anywhere else. Is he thinking I’m showing him my boobs because I’m
a slut who seduces any man who crosses her path? “It’s impossible
not to notice it,” I point out, aiming to sound casual and working
on a smile to support it.

Eleanor strolls in, surprising me, but stops
short when she notices Jack. “Oh, you’re here.” Her eyes wander
everywhere else in the kitchen, except for Jack, as if she too
flashed him her boobs.

“Hi, Eleanor,” Jack says, also avoiding her
direction. We three will put the people with real social anxiety
problems to shame. “How have you been?” Jack asks silently.

Eleanor moves toward the sink and fills a
glass of water to drink. “Good. How was your trip? Did the Italian
girls meet your expectations?” Whoa. That’s snaky and a tad too
jealous. Maybe she really showed him her boobs and some more.