Curio (3 page)

“And me? I’m not as bad as you feared?”

I grinned down at my hands. “No, not at all. You’re very disarming.”

“I’m glad.”

Seeing him nearly naked on his bed had me coursing with heat all over again. This was where he lay when he touched himself for real, without an audience.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“I think so. I’ve never watched a man before. In person.”

“Does it intimidate you, to feel like a voyeur?”

“Kind of.”

“That’s fine. Here is what we do.” He stood and got the setup going. A dark wicker changing screen from the corner of the room was arranged between the bed and the chair, all of the light on the bed’s side. I took a seat and could see him quite clearly through the gaps in the weave, sitting on the edge of the mattress. He could surely see only firelit lattice.

“This is better?” he asked.

“Yes, this is perfect.”

He grabbed a silk scarf from a side table and handed it to me. “This is all at your pace. When and if you’re ready for me to finish, just drape that over the screen.”

Didier is a genius.

As he sat once more, his expression changed as though he’d convinced himself I wasn’t there. His eyes half closed and he cast them downward, looking meditative. He ran a slow hand across his throat, down his chest, circling his living sculpture of an abdomen before finally cupping himself. My pulse rocketed, arousal so potent I held in a gasp.

His hand slid up and down, up and down, over his hidden cock, glacially slow and volcanically hot.

He looked up and addressed the screen. “Is it all right if I make noises?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

He braced his other arm behind him on the bed and leaned back. His right hand rubbed lower, fondling his balls, stroking deep between his thighs.

“I’d like to see,” I murmured.

I knew he heard me, but he didn’t take the order right away. I might have been in charge, but Didier’s not entirely obedient, I was discovering. He slid his hand inside the front of his shorts with a low, shallow moan. It was the most exquisite torture, watching the flex of his arm and the shape of his stroking hand, but being denied the view.

“Does it feel good?” I barely realized it was me talking. I felt high and disembodied.

“Feels wonderful. You want to see?” As if he didn’t know the answer.

“Yes.”

Still, he made me wait.

Let me be clear. I’m nearly thirty and a virgin, but in my head, I’m not a prude. Between me and my hand—and occasionally my vibrator, when I’m lazy—I’m no stranger to arousal or orgasm. I know what it’s like to be worked up beyond belief, and right then, watching Didier, I can honestly say I’ve
never
been that wound up before. My entire body was tight and fevery and impatient to the brink of madness.

At long last, when I thought I’d go crazy from the lust, he let me see. Easing the waistband over the tip of his cock, he drew his shorts down, revealing each thick inch with slow precision.

And all at once, I was in the same room with a naked man. An aroused, naked man, and the best-looking one I’ve ever seen.

It’s almost unfair, that he gets this body and this face and voice, all these gifts, and that his dick should also exceed expectations. Not so huge that it intimidates me, though. It was then that I knew I’d made the right decision, coming to him, and waiting for all these years to have these experiences with a man so extraordinary. I might be ruining myself, setting the bar this high.

Fuck it.

I watched not only his hand and cock, but the tensing of his stomach as he breathed, and the shift of his hips. For a minute he concentrated his strokes just below the head until a clear bead appeared at his tip, then more. With a soft moan, he crested his palm over his crown and slicked it down his shaft, skin glinting in the warm light.

“I’m so ready,” he murmured. There was no pressure in the statement. No request. The thought that my presence was linked to this man’s arousal felt like a miracle. And the idea that I could have him, if I wanted…

“Come closer,” I said.

He stood from the bed and stepped forward a pace, keeping just far enough away that our eyes couldn’t meet above the screen. He dropped his shorts and kicked them aside. As he pleasured his cock, his other hand caressed his belly and chest, all the places I longed to touch myself.

“I’d like to watch you bathe sometime,” I told him. Warm, soapy water dripping down his abdomen, between his legs…

“You can have anything you want.”

What I wanted right then surprised me. I wanted to be close to him.

“Go back to the bed, please.”

He did as I asked and I watched him for another minute or two. A strong, hard, pantingly horny man is a marvelous creature, everything the gender ought to be…yet so frequently isn’t, in this day and age. This was how Didier looked when he was by himself. Who did he think of, when he did this?

His groans grew harsher, driving the bad thought away and drawing my attention back where it should be.

I stood and skirted the shade, intending simply to move it aside. But my fear was gone so I let my body lead me, and it led me to sit right next to him on the edge of the bed and watch from close up. His lids looked leaden as he turned his face to me. I could have kissed him, I’m sure. I even leaned in, but when we made contact it was forehead to forehead. Yet it felt more personal than any kiss I’d ever experienced, more explicit by miles. His skin was hot and damp, breath sweet from the wine and scratchy with arousal. The moment was nothing like I’d feared. It was nervous but somehow natural. Sweet. I nestled against his shoulder and watched his hand, wondering what his cock must feel like…surely as hot as the cheek pressed to mine. But I wasn’t ready for the tease to end and real exploration to begin.

The smell of his sex was something I hadn’t anticipated. Heady and dark as rum, dark as his eyes and brows and the tidily trimmed hair between his legs.

He pulled away an inch to whisper, “What do you want from me?”

“Keep going. Until you absolutely have to…”

He nodded, and even in the candlelight I could see how pink his lips and ears and cheeks were. His cock was flushed as well, his shaft dark against his stroking hand. It was a revelation to know his arousal was so real, when I’d imagined his experience must have turned him into a cold machine, going through the motions.

I thought,
I could kiss this man, so easily.

Just as easily, I could discover all the things I’ve denied myself. I could find out what a hard cock feels like against my palm, what it tastes like, how it feels to have a man in my mouth. What it’s like to have Didier above me, sliding inside me. What it feels like, the first time. If you’re really turned-on, it’s not supposed to hurt very much. No problem there. What would it be like, to feel his cock rushing in and out? And how would I feel to him? Does it actually feel different with a virgin?

“Have you ever done this… Has a woman come to you, I mean, who’s a virgin?”

He nodded, lost in his own pleasure or the struggle to keep from losing it.

“Does it feel different?”

“Every woman feels different.”

“Oh.” Another good answer.

“I know if you decided you wanted me,” he said, “you would feel amazing.”

Fuck, that melted me. If I decided
I
wanted
him
. As if his wanting me were beyond speculation. Maybe it was even true. Maybe I was one of his prettier and younger clients. Maybe he’d even have smiled at me, had we met in line at a café and not under these strange circumstances.

I tried to imagine what other women might come here to do… To have a beautiful man kneel between their legs, take them roughly on this stately old bed, or ride his hard cock until they got their fill. He’d said nothing was off-limits. I imagined him tied down, or doing the tying. Getting spanked or doling out that punishment. He was whatever that evening’s client wanted, and right now, he was exactly mine, intuitively guiding my experience. I wondered what else he’d know I wanted, before I knew it myself.

“I’m imagining you,” he whispered.

My heart stopped, tangled in what he’d said. “What are you thinking about?”

“Imagining what you might have me do to you. Maybe undress you here on this bed. Taste your mouth and neck, and your breasts. Your sex.”

“I don’t know what I want yet.”

“I can’t wait to help you find out.”

Oh, but he could wait, surely. I bet no one can delay gratification like Didier Pedra.

“Do you like being watched?” I asked.

“I like pleasing a woman, so yes. I like the way you watch me.” His eyes were nearly closed, voice shallow and strained. “You still want this?”

“Yes.” So badly I prayed it would never end. “Would you stand? In front of me?”

Didier got to his feet and it felt precisely how I’d hoped with his body looming, just the slightest streak of intimidation warming me. I glanced at the little bottles beside his bed.

“Do you ever use any of those?” I asked, pointing.

“I do. Would you like that now?”

“Please.”

He reached for the largest bottle and lifted the sphere from its top, drawing out a glass wand and dripping a measure of clear liquid onto his palm. I recognized the smell—mineral oil.

“Slowly,” I said, surprised again by this new ability to make demands.

He obeyed, running his cupped hand along the underside of his shaft with perfect control. Next he smoothed the oil over the base, drawing his fist halfway up, then back down. With each stroke he came closer to the head, until his entire length shone in the dancing light.

“Does it feel good?”

“Yes, wonderful.” His hips joined the motion of his hand, thrusting his cock into his grip. Arousal obliterated a dam inside me, flooding me with heat and urgency.

I rose to stand at his side and study him from every angle. He seemed to understand what I wanted from this show, intensifying the movements. With his free hand he reached up and clasped the canopy rail, leaning forward to emphasize everything that had me so mesmerized. He held his fist still, fucking it with his cock and letting loose a deep groan. The sound sucked the breath from my lungs. I circled to the back, imagining this vision—the undulations of these strong hips and ass and shoulders—was how he’d look, taking me.

With a shallow, fearful inhalation, I reached out and touched him, trailing my fingertips down his spine. He moaned from the contact and I pulled away, but only for a moment. When I touched him again, I let myself linger. His skin was hot, as though he’d been standing in front of a fire, and damp with the finest sheen of perspiration. I traced the crests of his jutting shoulder blades, then down his back to his hip. Beneath my palm I felt the strength in his muscle and I marveled simply to be touching a man this way. To be touching a man this flawless. It was a glorious crime, like breaching security to stroke my palm over
Starry Night
and memorize its luscious brushstrokes.

As I rounded him, I dragged my palm across his lower back. I admired the flex of his arm, with my eyes as well as my touch. How extraordinary, that this was actually happening to me, that I was allowed to enjoy the most beautiful man I’d ever seen and he couldn’t break my heart.

I went back to the bed, kneeling on the mattress in front of him. As he fucked his fist, I mustered the nerve to touch his face. His gaze, half-mast though it was, felt too intense.

“Close your eyes.”

He did.

I memorized his cheekbones and the rasp of his stubble, the shapes of his ears and nose. I held his jaw, awed by how real he was. How he could look this astonishing yet still be flesh and blood. I rose enough to graze my closed lips against his lower one, not quite a kiss.

“I’m close,” he whispered. The words brushed our lips together, the most potent and personal caress I believe I’ve ever felt.

“I don’t want it to end yet.”

He nodded.

“Can you stop now, or are you too close?”

“I can stop.” And he did. He straightened, chest and belly rising and falling with each harsh breath.

“Could I watch you bathe?”

“Of course.”

“When you’re ready, I mean.”

He smiled at that. “Thank you.” He ran his hands through his hair and gulped a few inhalations, until his composure returned.

“That was… That was exactly what I wanted,” I told him.

“Good.”

I felt myself blushing but continued anyway. “Does it make any difference, that it’s me here with you when you were doing that?”

“Of course.” He met my gaze and as intense as it was, I welcomed it. “Everything I did was for you. Every thought that ran through my mind was of you. And it thrills me to be the only man you’ve watched, that way.”

The blush raged to a full-blown fire. “Oh.”

“Whatever you desire tonight, I want to be the one who gives it to you.”

I felt too many things, at that moment—lust and awe, and a romantic thrill quickly eclipsed as my traitorous, annoying brain reminded me we were only together because I was paying him. But the illusion felt too good for the ugly thoughts to win. That’s the magic of Didier—he lets you believe this romance is real. Because for the six hours you’ve reserved with him, it is.

“You want to watch me bathe now?”

I nodded.

“Come.”

I followed him to an adjacent, tiny bathroom, lit by the clear bulbs framing the cabinet mirror. This is a garret, I’ll remind you, so don’t imagine he has an actual tub, merely a shower cubicle. But it’s an elegant little nook, tiled in teal and turquoise and indigo, with antique copper fixtures. I took a seat on the wooden lid of his toilet and marveled at how close his naked body was. He got the water running, leaving the glass door wide open.

For whatever reason, this seemed more intimate than sitting beside him on his bed. There was his shampoo bottle, a brand I’d seen in the drugstore a hundred times. On the sink, the razor he shaved with—however infrequently—his toothbrush, his comb. All of these things felt more explicit than his bare cock, perhaps because they negated the illusion. He’s an actual man, and I’d been invited into this, his actual home.