Summer Son (9 page)

It didn’t contain a whole lot. I just wanted to check for any mention of allergies. I was sure we were probably told at one point, but I never remembered stuff like that. There was lots of important information imparted at the time, and I barely listened to half of it. I was more concerned about the impending baby.

There wasn’t anything in the file about allergies, except to cats, and we already knew about that. It wasn’t likely to be hereditary. I loved cats but Ollie didn’t, so he wasn’t bothered about the possibility of his son being allergic to them. It was a good excuse for him not to let me get one.

If I ever moved out of the city, I’d vowed to fill my home with animals.

The afternoon flew by as I cleaned the apartment and answered some e-mails, all while trying to get Harrison to eat his lunch. I clearly didn’t have Zane’s skills in either cookery or coercion. Most of it ended up over me or the floor. Since he’d eaten a decent breakfast, I decided not to get too stressed out and let him play, with a plate of food within easy reach if he wanted it.

I sent Zane a text asking him to text me when he was awake and saying that I owed him dinner, and got an immediate response.

I like eating dinner.

If you want to eat it here, I’m cooking.

Want me to bring anything?

Lube?

For dinner?

For dessert ;)

I’ll see you in about thirty mins.

I laughed to myself and set my phone aside. Thanks to Harrison’s happier mood today, the apartment was in a much better state; good enough for guests, anyway. I quickly browsed through some movies online and bookmarked a few we could put on and not watch.

Even though I’d seen him earlier in the day, I wanted Zane back with us again. He lifted me in a way I never thought possible. It felt right to have him around.

He arrived with a bottle of white wine, held aloft like a prize.

“Awesome,” I said and dragged him inside so I could thoroughly kiss him. He tasted like mint and heat, and I licked out the last drop of flavor before releasing him.

“That was some hello,” he said, and I grinned.

“Hello.”

He held up his other hand, where he had been hiding a fresh bottle of lube. I laughed then, right from my belly, and decided he was even more wonderful than I’d first thought.

“What’s for dinner?”

“It’s called ratatouille. It’s a layered vegetable dish with tomato sauce. It’s really good.”

Zane touched my cheek lightly and smiled. “I know what ratatouille is, baby.”

“Oh,” I said, blushing. “Good. I’ve got mozzarella to go on top, but I wasn’t sure if you eat cheese.”

“I do, sometimes,” he said. “Not eggs, though.”

“Okay, good to know. I also made sourdough garlic bread.”

“I thought I could smell something,” he said, planting his hand firmly on my hips so we could sway together.

“I’ve been making sourdough for ages. It’s really good. You can keep the same starter and use it over and over again. My mom has a sourdough starter that’s years old.”

“Cool,” he said. “Where’s Harrison?”

I nodded toward the living room. Zane rose up on his toes, kissed my jaw, and wandered off to find my son. They sounded delighted to see each other again.

The ratatouille was easy enough to make, and I’d already done the hard work. All that was left was to put the cheese on top and bake it. With the bread cooling on the counter and not needing my attention, I opened the bottle of wine and poured two glasses.

Zane was on the floor with Harrison between his knees, the two of them playing with a stack of bricks and trains. I set his wine on the coffee table and perched on the edge of the sofa to watch them.

“Lupe called me earlier,” Zane said, tipping his head back to rest on my knee.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. She invited us for dinner one night with her and Az.”

I laughed. “That sounds good. But you should know, Az only wants to give me hell. When I took Harrison to the clinic, he took blood from me to do a full STI screening.”

“That’s hilarious. He did mine a few days ago.”

“But because of confidentiality, he’s not allowed to tell either of us that he’s done it for the other,” I said as the realization dawned on me.

Zane grinned up at me from the floor. “Brilliant. We shouldn’t let him know that we both know. See if we can make him crack.”

“You wonderful little evil genius,” I said. I leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “I love it.”

“I’ll let Lupe know you’re in.”

Zane played a good game of trains, but I could tell Harrison was getting tired. I wasn’t sure how he’d react to being made to go to bed when his new favorite playmate was around. There was only one way to find out.

“I’m just going to make up his bottle,” I said, and Zane nodded.

“Okay. Do you, um, read him a story before bed?”

“Sometimes.”

“I’ll find him one.”

There wasn’t exactly a shortage of stories to pick from on my bookshelf, and I kept Harrison’s picture books on the bottom, so he could go to them if he wanted. Zane had a nice voice, and I wanted to listen in to whatever he chose.

I’d perfected making the formula almost in my sleep, so the process didn’t take long. I still hovered before walking back to the living room, though, wanting to catch whatever it was Zane was reading. He’d picked the story about the penguin with two dads, and my heart gave another painful thump in my chest.

It was a picture book, so Zane had Harrison on his lap, the book held in front of them so Harrison could see the illustrations. Zane narrated and also pointed out things in the story, just like I did.

He caught me watching and gave me a smile before returning to his story. Harrison looked enraptured. I went back into the kitchen to finish making up the bottle, then took it to the sofa to sit with them.

“Ready, baba?” I asked when Zane closed the book and set it aside.

He reached his hands out to me, and I smiled as I pulled him close.

“I won’t be long,” I said to Zane, who nodded.

Harrison went down quickly, not even finishing half his bottle before succumbing to sleep. When I went back out to the living room Zane was curled up with my copy of
Harry Potter
. I sat down on the couch and pulled him to me for a kiss.

“That was quick,” he murmured.

“Yeah. I think he likes you reading him stories.”

“I like doing it.”

I kissed him again, then went back to the kitchen to serve up dinner.

Chapter 6

“Y
OU
DON
’
T
have a TV,” he said as I carried two plates through to the living room.

“No,” I said. “I don’t even notice anymore. Here.”

“This looks amazing,” he said, sliding to the floor to put his plate on the coffee table.

I rarely sat on the floor to eat and decided to live wild and join him down there.

“Why not?”

“Why not what?”

“Why don’t you have a TV?”

I sighed. “Not sure, really. Oliver took the one from in here when he left, and I never got around to replacing it. The screen on my computer is big enough that if I want to watch a movie or something I just pull the couch around and watch it on that.”

“Oh. I wondered if it was something to do with not exposing Harrison to the evil television.”

“No,” I said with a snort. “Some kids’ TV is awesome. Have you seen
Adventure Time
?”

“Yes,” he said emphatically.

“I love it. I’m obsessed. He’s too young to get it yet, though.”

“It’s wasted on anyone under the age of fifteen.”

“You’re probably right.”

He wound a long stretch of mozzarella around his finger and sucked it into his mouth while I tried not to stare.

“This is really good,” he said when he caught me staring.

“Thanks. It’s actually pretty easy to make. Like lasagna, without the beef.”

“Mm.”

After we finished eating, I set the plates aside, downed half my glass of wine, and leaned back against the sofa cushions, rubbing my overfull stomach.

“So,” Zane said, running his hand up and down my arm from elbow to wrist. “What are we going to have as background noise while we make out like horny teenagers?”

“Well,” I said, then cleared my throat. “I thought
Die Hard
.”

“Ah. A classic.”

I already had the movie downloaded onto my computer, so it only took a moment to get it ready to play. I turned the lights off, the one from the hallway enough to see by, and pulled the curtains closed.

When I settled back again, it was with Zane’s head on my shoulder. We made it about five minutes into the movie before his lips were on my skin.

When the movie finished and Alan Rickman fell to his dramatic death, Zane rolled onto his back and looked up at me.

“Still a classic.”

“Hmm.”

I leaned in and kissed him again, even though my lips were feeling sore, bruised from all the kissing and biting we’d already done.

“Do you have music on there too?” he asked.

“Sure. Lots. I have music on all the time.”

“Okay. Stay here.”

Zane hauled himself off the sofa and fiddled around on the computer for a minute, his back obscuring what was going on. I was quietly amused and intrigued in equal parts. My neck was starting to ache, so I wriggled into a sitting position.

The speakers weren’t on particularly loud, but I still jumped when the track started.

“My mind is telling me no… but my body… my body is telling me yes….”

“Is that—” I started, and he turned back. The words dried up in my throat as he bit his lip and smoldered at me. There was no other way to describe it. “What the… what are you doing?”

Zane cocked his head to the side as the music started. “Seducing you.”

“To… ‘Bump ’n’ Grind’?”

“I’m from the ’hood, baby. This is how we do it.”

Even I could admit that the rhythmical rolling of his hips was mesmerizing. Zane spread his knees obscenely wide as he danced, and I was torn between desperate arousal and hysterical laughter. It was so cheesy, so very retro nineties slick, but he looked so good doing it. The guy had natural rhythm like nothing I’d ever seen before.

“Come here,” he said, holding his hand out to me.

I was laughing as I gave him my hand and he tugged me to my feet. With my hands on his hips and his arms around my neck, I pressed my forehead to his.

“You dance good,” he murmured.

“So do you,” I croaked back.

“Do you want to take me to bed?”

“Yes. But I really want you to turn this record off first.”

He broke first, a little giggle, and it didn’t take long for us both to collapse onto the sofa, holding our stomachs from laughing too hard.

“Oh my God,” I gasped as the song ended. “I can’t believe you.”

Zane looked over to me and grinned. “I try.”

“I mean it. You’re like no one I’ve ever met before.”

“Ellis?”

“Yeah?” I said, looking at him.

“Take me to bed.”

It seemed appropriate to carry him, even if he did protest and squirm rather halfheartedly as I walked through to my bedroom and dumped him on the bed. Not one to stand on ceremony, Zane stripped off his clothes, lay back against my pillow, and lazily palmed his cock.

All I could do was stare at him.

“You could join me,” he said.

I turned back to the door and shut it firmly, then turned the baby monitor down low so it wouldn’t disturb us, but if Harrison woke up screaming, I’d still hear.

While I stripped off my own clothes, leaving them to fall wherever, Zane started jerking himself in earnest, one hand on his cock, the other pinching at a nipple. When I was naked too I crawled up his body and batted his hand away until he let me take over, and I angled his cock between my lips. He bucked into my mouth a few times, but we both knew what he really wanted, and when I slapped his thigh to get him to roll over, he actually sobbed.

When I rimmed him he came apart at the seams.

He didn’t even touch his cock as I spread his cheeks with my palms and let my tongue loosen his hole. His hands were bunched into fists while his forearms were used as leverage to push back against me. Getting him to make those noises was becoming like a full-time ambition of mine. He sounded incredible.

Zane was still facedown when I smeared plenty of lube over my cock and pushed into him. He moaned and whimpered and said he couldn’t take it, then snarled and grabbed at my arm when I tried to pull away.

I pinned him down and kissed his neck and his shoulders and tried to keep my mouth occupied on one part of his body or another in case I did something ridiculous like admit I was in love. Not just when we were having sex, but really in love with him, all the way.

Still too soon
, the voice at the back of my head whispered, and I nodded to it. Of course it was too soon. We were only weeks in.

Zane humped my sheets as he came, and I bit his shoulder as I chased my own orgasm. Then he claimed he couldn’t move, his thighs weren’t working, and I had to stumble through to the bathroom on my own unsteady legs to find something to clean him up with.