Marie Sexton - Coda 04 - Strawberries for Dessert (19 page)

W
E GOT
to New York and found a cab, and Cole named a hotel. “We’re not staying at the Waldorf?” I asked him jokingly. He didn’t even look at me. “We can, if you like.”

“Cole?” I waited for him to meet my gaze. “I was kidding. Anywhere is fine.”

 

“The one I chose is on Broadway. It will make our trip to theater infinitely easier.”

 

“Broadway?” I asked, knowing that I sounded like an excited kid, but unable to contain myself. “Are we going to a show?”

“Did I not just say that, love?” he asked, but he smiled at me when he said it, if only a little. “Why else would I bring you to this godforsaken city?”

All I could do was laugh with joy. I reached across the cab and put my hand on the back of his neck and pulled him toward me. He didn’t push me away like he often did, but he didn’t exactly cooperate either. He stared resolutely straight ahead, and I ended up kissing his temple. “Thank you,” I told him.

“You’re welcome,” he said quietly, and I could tell my excitement cheered him up a little.

We got to the hotel and checked in. Over the years, I had stayed in hundreds of motel rooms, but none like this one. It was huge, with a giant window looking down at the lights of Broadway. The bed was deep and soft and wonderfully inviting after a long day of traveling. 152

“I can’t believe you brought me all the way to New York just to see a show,” I said to him, and he smiled.

“I hoped you would be pleased. I would have liked to take you to Paris, but it’s not very convenient for a weekend trip. I wanted it to be something that you would enjoy even if I was being terribly moody. ”

I hesitated for a moment, not wanting to upset him, but I finally asked, “Are you going to tell me why we’re here?”

He turned away from me, looking out the window. “Because,” he said, his voice so quiet I had to strain to hear him, “tomorrow’s my birthday.”

And suddenly it all made sense—his comments about being terrible company but still wanting to have me with him. He had all the money in the world, but nobody to spend his own birthday with. Nobody but me. I crossed over to him. He still had his back to me, and I wrapped my arms around him from behind. “Happy birthday,” I whispered in his ear.

He didn’t answer me with words, but for the first time ever, he truly relaxed in my arms. He seemed to sink into himself, and he leaned back against me with a sigh. It felt so natural and so perfect. It felt
right
. I put my face into his silky hair, breathing in that scent I loved so much.

“Would you rather go out to eat for your birthday, or should I order room service?”

 

“I don’t care, love. First, I’m going to shower.” He turned his head so he could look up at me. “Do you want to join me?”

We had never showered together before. It was one of those casual intimacies he seemed to avoid, and his sudden invitation surprised me. I was tempted for a moment, but there was something else I wanted to do more. “You go ahead,” I told him.

I called the concierge as soon as I heard the water turn on. She laughed but said she would take care of it. Then I called room service. All that was left after that was to wait. I thought again of him in the shower, wondering if we would have enough time. I gave in, deciding to risk it, but just as I walked into the bathroom, the water turned off. 153

His shower must have been scorching hot, because the bathroom was thick with steam. It smelled like soap and strawberries, and I found it incredibly arousing. “You’re late,” he said jokingly as he stepped out of the tub. His skin was beaded with water. His light brown hair looked almost black, wet and stuck to his head.

“I changed my mind.”

He reached for a towel, and I stepped in front of them, blocking his access. I knew it was cruel. He was soaking wet and starting to get goose bumps. But I really didn’t want him to dry off yet. “Is there a reason you’re making me stand here freezing, love?” he asked.

“Yes.” I took his hand and pulled him toward me, and he came. I leaned close to him and gently kissed his neck, just below his ear, and he shivered. The water droplets on his skin tasted sweet on my tongue, and I wondered if it was my imagination that they tasted like strawberries. I followed their trail, kissing and licking down his neck to his collarbone, then along his collarbone to tiny pool of water in the hollow of his throat. I let my tongue caress him there, and he sighed and leaned back against the countertop behind him.

I moved lower, chasing water drops down his chest. I got on my knees and followed them over his stomach to his groin. Once there, I took the slender tip of his cock in my mouth, gripping his ass tight with both hands. I swirled my tongue around his head.

“Oh God,” he moaned. He grabbed the back of my head. His fingers knotted in my hair, and he pushed me further down his shaft. He held me there for a moment before starting to move. I let him lead, let him use his hand in my hair to guide me up and down. He moaned again, sort of a soft sigh. I loved the sounds he made as he got off.

My own erection was wedged painfully into my jeans, and I reached to unbutton them. In one quick movement, he pulled out of my mouth. He pulled hard on my hair so that I got to my feet, and he kissed me insistently. He let go of my hair, and he started to unbutton my pants. I put one arm around his waist, pulling his still-wet body close. My other hand wrapped around his erection. He was breathing hard and moaning. His slender fingers slid into my pants and—

Knock, knock, knock.

 

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We both froze. “Good grief, what dreadful timing,” he said breathlessly, and I laughed at what an incredible understatement it was. “Who could that be?”

“That,” I said as I disengaged myself from him and started to button my pants back up over my erection, “is probably our dinner.” I answered the door with my clothes half-wet and sticking to my body and an embarrassing bulge in my pants, but the room service guy was either oblivious or used to it. He had the item I had requested from the concierge, and I gave him a generous tip. He was gone by the time Cole came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

“What did you order?” he asked.
“Hamburgers.”
He smiled. “And the wine?”

I took it out of the bucket and handed it to him. His cheeks turned crimson, but he smiled. It was a bottle of Arbor Mist Blackberry Merlot, and given that I had to pay extra for somebody to run out and buy it, it was probably the most expensive five-dollar bottle of wine ever.

“It’s a red,” he said mockingly. “Why on earth is it on ice?” “They probably figured anyone who drinks this stuff doesn’t know enough about wine to know the difference.”

 

“Probably.” He stepped up to me and put one arm around my waist. “Thank you.”

 

“Don’t thank me yet,” I said as I kissed him. “After we eat, I’ll finish giving you your real present.”

We ate dinner and drank his cheap wine, and then finished what we had started after his shower. And like always, when it was over, he moved to the other side of the bed, not touching me, and turned out the light.

I was just drifting off to sleep when I felt the featherlight touch of his fingertips on my wrist. It was something he had never done before, and it made me smile. I opened my eyes. It was dark in the room, and he was nothing more than still shadow across from me. His fingers 155

came to a stop, lightly resting on the back of my hand. I turned it over, thinking I would hold his hand, but when I moved, he pulled quickly away.

Was it possible that he hadn’t meant for me to know? Had he assumed I was asleep? It made my heart ache that he was so determined to keep these walls between us when neither of us wanted them. How many nights had I lay sleeping while he secretly reached out to me in the dark?

I slid my hand slowly across to him and gripped his slender fingers. I tried to pull him toward me. He resisted, pulling against me. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the contact had been accidental. Or maybe he just wasn’t ready to allow anything more. I pulled again, to no avail. I tried to swallow disappointment. I should have known better than to try. It wasn’t his idea, so of course he was resistant. I was about to let go of his hand when suddenly, to my surprise, the resistance stopped. I hesitated, unsure if I should try again or not. Finally, I pulled one more time, just barely. And with a quiet sigh he slid across that expanse of clean white sheets and into my arms.

His face was against my neck, one arm around my waist. Our legs tangled together. I tried to ignore the lightness in my chest, the quiet racing of my pulse. I told myself there was no lump in my throat. He didn’t speak, and I didn’t either. I wrapped my arms around him, buried my face in his soft hair, and held him tight.

B
Y THE
time I woke the next morning, he had moved away from me again. I kissed the back of his head as I got out of bed and headed for the shower. Although it was early based on Arizona time, in New York it was much later than I usually woke, and I decided to let myself slack on the jogging today.

When I emerged from the bathroom, I found him awake. He was standing at the window wearing only his briefs, looking down at the busy street below.
156

“Doesn’t your mother live in Manhattan?” I asked as I pulled on my own briefs.

 

“Yes,” he said quietly, not looking at me.

I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. I walked over to stand next to him and saw the wary way he looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. “Are we going to see her while we’re here?”

He didn’t answer me—just continued staring resolutely out the window. The curtains were open, but the sheers were closed. He found the opening in the center of them and tangled his slender fingers into the fabric. He leaned his forehead against the smooth glass of the window, allowing his hair to fall over his eyes, and pulled the sheer fabric around him, so that it was between us.

“Are you going to call her?”

 

He didn’t look at me. The soft sunlight through window and the thin fabric made glowing patterns on his caramel skin.

 

“Cole?” I prodded gently.

 

He sighed in exasperation, although I was pretty sure it was feigned. “I already did, darling.”

 

“And?”

 

“I’m afraid she’s terribly busy. She doesn’t have time to meet with us.”

 

She was busy? Too busy to see her only son on his birthday? “Has she remarried?”

“No.”
“And she doesn’t work?”
“Of course not.”

“So,” I said, knowing that I should probably shut up, but unable to make myself do it, “what exactly is it that has her so busy?” It took him a second to answer me, but he said quietly, “I’m sure I don’t know, darling.”

 

“She doesn’t even have time for lunch?”

 

157

 

“Apparently not.”

 

The quiet resignation in his voice was painful to hear, and I regretted having pushed him so far. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. He let go of the curtain, letting it fall back to the window. “Please don’t feel sorry for me.”

 

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “It’s all terribly cliché, isn’t it? ‘Poor little rich boy’.” He pulled away from the window a little, although he still didn’t turn toward me. I could see him only in profile, and his hair still blocked his eyes from my sight. His voice was quieter, different than normal in some way I couldn’t quite pinpoint. “Everything about me is a cliché.”

And then it hit me what was different: his affectation was almost gone, the sing-song pattern of his speech undetectable.

This was a part of him I had caught glimpses of but never actually seen. It was as if some force field that normally surrounded him had disappeared, and instead of being strong and confident, I saw that he was terribly fragile. I knew he had no intention of letting me see him this way. If he realized that the walls were gone—that I could actually touch him—he would pull back, push me away, slam the walls back into place by cocking his hip out, batting his eyes at me through his hair, winking at me flirtatiously, and calling me “darling.”

I wanted more than anything to grab him and hold him and make everything good for him, but I wasn’t sure how to even reach him without having him push me away. I was afraid even to speak. I slowly put my hand out. I was sure that when I touched him, he would crumble to dust beneath my fingers or vanish in a toss of his perfectly cut hair.

I put one fingertip on his bare shoulder. He didn’t make any indication that he felt it, but when I slid it slowly down his arm, his eyes drifted closed, and his breath caught in his throat. I moved closer. I was moving slowly, quietly, desperate to connect with this secret part of him—to somehow own it and make it mine. I put my hand on the small of his back, and he turned his face toward me.
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I could see everything in his eyes at that moment. He was fighting tears. He was desperate for something, yet unable to ask for it. He was ashamed of himself for being vulnerable but too tired of pretending to cover it up.

I kept my voice low and quiet, lest I scare him away. “Cole, there is nothing cliché about you.”

He closed his eyes. His breath was shaky. I put one hand on his cheek, used my other arm to pull him toward me. His eyes opened, and they were moist with tears and full of uncertainty.

He looked into my eyes. He said one word, quietly, only a whisper. But what he said was, “Jonathan.”

Only my name and nothing more. And yet it was everything. He had never said it before—not once. It kindled a tenderness in me that was undeniable. It touched me in a way that nothing else ever had before. It made me realize with a sudden, painful certainty that my desire to own him was completely misguided. It was too late. I was his in every way, and until this moment, I hadn’t quite known it. I wondered if he knew it. I wondered if he cared.

I pulled him tight against me and kissed him. I had kissed him many times, but never like this. Never with my heart in my throat and my hands shaking. Never with the need that I felt now. I wanted to taste every part of him. I wanted somehow to touch him the way he had touched me.

His lips were soft and warm and insistent. He wrapped his arms around my neck and kissed me with a desperation he had never shown me before. I halfway carried him to the bed and pushed him back onto it. We still had our briefs on, and the lube was on the floor on the other side of the bed, and I didn’t care. I didn’t want to stop touching him long enough to change any of those things. I didn’t want to risk losing what we were both feeling at that moment. I only wanted to keep feeling his skin against mine, keep tasting his damp cheeks beneath my lips, keep hearing his trembling breath in my ear.