Belonging (19 page)

My smile got wider. “You could have
asked...no, never mind.”

“Ah, see? Exactly! The only thing more
awkward than asking my date to bring me condoms would be asking my
son to get me some, and that was my only other
alternative.”

“Well, this is all news to me. You
really didn’t broadcast this alleged attraction in any way,” I told
him.

After a pause he asked, “Why’d you let
me kiss you at the airport, Gianni? I’ve been nothing but a thorn
in your side since the day you met me.”

“Why do you think?”

He watched me for a long moment, the
fingers of his right hand absently tracing a pattern on one of the
shelves beside him. Finally he said, “You didn’t say goodbye. You
didn’t even tell me you were moving, and I just saw you
yesterday.”

I broke eye contact and said, “I
didn’t decide to go until after I’d seen you. And, okay, I could
have called you myself instead of letting Christian tell you, but I
didn’t want to say goodbye to you, Zan.”

“Did I do something that drove your
decision?”

I looked up at him and said, “I
thought I was attracted to someone who hated me, since you kept
shutting me out. It seemed like getting far away from that
situation was the best solution.”

“I’m sorry I made you think that. I’m
also sorry that I acted like a child and couldn’t just tell you
what I was feeling.”

“Well, I couldn’t, either.”

He said quietly, “Nothing’s really
changed with me, you know. Just because I managed to force myself
out of the house doesn’t mean I solved a damn thing. I’ve still got
a mountain of problems and you’d be doing yourself a favor by
running away from me. But for fuck’s sake, don’t run to New York.
You managed to pick someone even worse for you than I am with Jason
Jax.”

“New York was a dumb idea. I’m going
to call Jason and let him know I’m turning down his offer.
Actually, I should call him now, before he sees the internet
footage of us kissing at the airport. That’s a bad way to let him
know I’m not coming.”

I pulled my phone from my pocket and
took it out of airplane mode. There were twenty-two messages.
Apparently a lot of people had seen my internet debut. I scrolled
through the missed calls and saw one from Jason. When I listened to
the message he’d left, my eyes went wide. I put it on speaker and
played it again for Zan.

Jason sounded incredibly angry as he
growled, “You fucking whore! I ask you to fucking come and be with
me, and there you are all over the internet, making out with
fucking Zan Tillane, of all people! You better not have gotten on
the plane to New York after that stunt. If you did, you can just
turn around and get your sorry ass right the fuck out of here on
your own dime! This is your fuckin’ loss, bitch, not mine! You
think you’re something special because you ended up in my bed?
Newsflash. Boys like you are a dime a dozen. I have five more
whores just like you in apartments all over New York. Actually, on
second thought, they’re not like you. They’re younger and cuter! I
was doing you a favor by making you this offer and you’re a fucking
idiot for fucking it up the way you did. Lose my number,
slut.”

“Alright,” I said as I disconnected
and set my phone on the shelf, “lay it on me.”

“Lay what on you?”

“The I-told-you-so. I was wrong about
Jason Jax, and you were right. He’s a total jerk, and I didn’t see
it.”

“The surprising thing about Jax is
that he’s actually a good actor,” Zan said with a half-smile. “One
would never guess it by the crap films he keeps making. You’re just
the latest in a long line of people that have believed the act and
not seen him for the complete wanker that he is. For what it’s
worth, I’m sorry that you had to find out the hard way.”

“Oh, I didn’t find out the hard way. I
got off easy by getting the full Jason experience in just a
voicemail, instead of moving to New York and eventually
experiencing his Jekyll-and-Hyde trick first-hand. Thank you for
going through all that trouble to come to the airport and stop
me.”

“I didn’t really come to the airport
because of Jason. I came because of me. But you’re welcome
anyway.”

I reached up and brushed a long strand
of hair out of his eyes. “You came because of you?”

Zan nodded. “The message I was
bringing from Marin wasn’t ‘Jason’s a prat’, though he is. It was
‘I fancy you’.” I started to laugh, and he said, “What?”

“That’s hilarious. ‘I fancy you.’ Of
all the British expressions you’ve managed to hold on to after
years in the states, that has to be the most endearingly
awkward.”

“But you fancy me too, so I can get
away with it.”

I flashed him a big smile. “I do. I
fancy the hell out of you, Zan. And I’m never, ever going to call
it that again, because it sounds completely insane.”

He grinned and pulled me into his
arms, brushing his cheek against mine as he ran his hands down my
back. “God, it feels good to touch you,” he murmured.

“I can’t begin to imagine how you went
all those years without physical contact.”

“It’s amazing what one can adapt to
and learn to do without. But once I met you, that all went to hell.
I was vividly reminded, every time I saw you, of all I’d been
missing.”

I stroked his hair and asked, “If I
hadn’t forced your hand by almost moving across the country, when
were you going to do something about the way you felt?”

“I was waiting for some sign, any
little thing that showed me I wasn’t the only one feeling this.
That day with the weird tentacle fruit, when we were joking around
and I had you up against the wall, I was dying for you to kiss me.
It was the perfect moment, you had every opportunity. But when you
didn’t do it, I felt like such an idiot. I thought you didn’t want
me, so I really tried to back off after that.”

“I was waiting for you to make a
move,” I told him, “in case I was reading it wrong.”

Zan chuckled at that. “We’re a hell of
a pair, both of us so afraid of making a mistake that we almost let
this slip away.”

He kissed me so tenderly, and I
whispered against his lips, “Thank you, Zan.”

He pulled back just a few inches to
look at me. “What are you thanking me for?”

“You turned your whole world upside
down for me. What you went through to get to me....” I took a deep
breath, trying to keep my emotions in check, and added softly,
“Thank you for caring that much.” He smiled sweetly and kissed me
again.

I guided him to the bed and we
stretched out on top of the covers fully clothed, then went right
on kissing. His touch was incredibly gentle, his fingertips
exploring my hair, my neck, the curve of my jaw. After a while I
said, “Please don’t go back to your house, Zan. At least, not right
away. You’ve made it this far, maybe you can build on that and
start a new chapter in your life.”

“I don’t know if I can do
that.”

“Are you uncomfortable right now? Do
you wish you were back home?” I asked.

“Well, no. But that’s because I’m
totally focused on you.”

“Stay here with me. Let’s just shoot
for twenty-four hours and see how it goes, okay?”

He mulled that over for a while,
chewing on his full lower lip as he lightly caressed my back.
Finally he said, “I can probably do that if you stay with me the
entire time.”

I smiled and touched his handsome
face. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Zan still looked concerned, a worry
line appearing between his brows. “Have you stopped to consider
what you’re getting yourself into by becoming involved with me?
You’d be hard pressed to find a man with more problems. As if
that’s not enough, our age gap isn’t exactly trivial.”

“I don’t even notice our age
difference. Do you?”

“No, but I probably should. It’s
rather unseemly for a man of forty-eight to become involved with
one of his son’s friends.”

“You don’t look or act your age,” I
said. “Also, I’m seven years older than Christian.”

He grinned at that. “Oh, seven years.
Well, that’s alright then.”

I reached behind me and picked my
phone off the shelf as I told him, “Speaking of Christian, I’d
better text him. If he’s seen you on the internet, he’s probably
wondering what the hell’s going on.”

My friend called us back right after I
sent the text. He sounded concerned, since of course he’d already
seen the videos of his dad at the airport. “I’m sorry I worried
you,” Zan told him before answering a barrage of
questions.

It took a while to reassure Christian,
and when they finally disconnected, Zan sighed quietly. “I’ve been
such a disaster throughout most of his life. He moved in with me
when he was fifteen and assumed almost a parental role. The kicker
is, I let him. I was too much of a mess to take care of him, so he
took care of me instead. I’ve been such a burden to
him.”

“He loves you so much, Zan. I’m sure
he doesn’t consider you a burden.”

“But I have been, and I’m absolutely
determined not to do the same thing to you. I wanted to prove
something to myself and hopefully to you today. I wanted to prove I
can change.”

He dropped his gaze,
looking down at my dark blue bedspread, and added, “I almost didn’t
make it out of my fucking house. I didn’t tell you about the huge
panic attack that left me curled up on the floor of my garage for a
while, gasping for breath like a fish out of water. I also didn’t
tell you that I was shaking so hard when I finally got myself off
the ground and onto that mower that I could barely work the
controls. I was fucking
terrified
, but I couldn’t stop. In
part, it was because I was determined to see you. But also, I knew
if I let myself fail, I’d never, ever leave that place again, not
until they wheeled my dead body out at some point in the distant,
or not so distant, future.”

“Oh God, Zan,” I murmured.

He said, “The point of this long,
embarrassing story is that I really am going to try to get it
together for you, Gianni. You deserve so much more than a broken
shell of a man. I’ll do whatever it takes to give us a fighting
chance. I don’t know if it’ll be enough, or if my problems are even
fixable. But I’m damn well going to try.”

I gathered him into my arms and his
lips met mine. His soft, tender kisses soon turned hungry and he
tugged at my shirt, untucking it from my jeans so he could slide
his hand under it and caress my back. When I took my shirt off for
him, his hands and mouth slid over my bare skin. He seemed almost
desperate for me, sucking one nipple and then the other before
running his tongue up my neck and kissing my ear. I gave myself
over to it completely, my cock throbbing as he all but consumed me.
I’d never felt so desired, even though I knew his urgency was just
a byproduct of all those years of celibacy.

Zan undressed me as he continued to
explore my body, and once I was completely naked I knelt between
his legs and unbuttoned the fly of his 501s, freeing his thick,
swollen cock. When I ran my tongue up his length, he stifled a cry,
grabbing my pillow and biting down on it. I smiled at that. If one
lick had that effect, what I was about to do to him was probably
going to render him unconscious.

I wrapped my lips around his shaft and
sucked him, gently at first, then with increasing speed and
pressure, taking my cues from his moans. I put my hands behind my
back, grabbing my wrists to keep from reaching for him, and
concentrated on using my mouth and tongue to pleasure him. It
didn’t take long to bring him to orgasm. He yelled into the pillow,
his legs shaking and his hips coming up off the mattress. I
swallowed his cum automatically as it flooded my mouth. I liked the
way he tasted. It was a bit unusual, sweet and delicate, an
interesting side effect of his clean, limited diet.

Once he was totally spent I eased off
him, carefully tucking him in and buttoning his fly for him. Then I
eagerly went for my reward, snuggling against his side. When he put
his arms around me and held me tightly, I smiled and let my eyes
slide shut, relaxing into his embrace.

It was a few moments before he could
speak, his breathing gradually leveling out. When he did, he said,
“Bloody hell Gianni, that was astonishing. Thank you. I realize
I’ve been benched a long time, but I don’t remember it ever being
even remotely that good.” I smiled again, basking in his
praise.

He rolled over so he was facing me and
pulled me close again, my head resting on his bicep as he draped a
leg over my thighs. It felt so incredibly wonderful to be wrapped
up in him like that. I burrowed deeper into his arms, which in turn
made him hold me tighter. Zan kissed my hair and after a while, he
said softly, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course. Ask me anything,” I
murmured.

“Why did you do that with your hands
when you were sucking me? Putting them behind your back, I
mean?”

My eyes flew open and I looked up at
him as I said quickly, “I’m sorry. I can do it differently next
time. I didn’t know what you preferred.”