17
1339 Words
Deep furrows appear in James’s brow. “That’s the first thing you come up with when I tell you I haven’t been with anyone in a while? That I’m diseased?”
“Not the first thing, just the worst, because that’s how my brain works. I wasn’t sure if you were trying to find a way to tell me I’d have to buy a special latex body suit to wear or get some powerful antibiotics or something.”
When James simply sits there staring at me in wordless dismay, the cab driver says in heavily-accented English over his shoulder, “You’re right to ask. AIDS cases are on the rise.”
I turn and give him the stink eye. “Thank you for that enlightening kernel of unsolicited information. You’re a gem. Now go back to minding your own business, please.”
He shrugs, turning away.
I look back and find James still staring at me. I say, “So it’s a no on the STDs, then.”
“It’s an unequivocal no. You?”
“Also no.”
After a moment of awkward silence, he sighs heavily. All the electrifying need from a few moments ago drains out of him. Now he simply looks tired.
“I just…I can’t do small talk anymore. I can’t do fake. I don’t have the energy it takes to flirt and pretend to be interested in all the shallow, superficial s**t I have to wade through before I actually get to know someone. Before I can tell if she’s worth my time. Because that’s…”
After a tense moment, he goes on more quietly, his voice almost lost under the sound of the tires moving over the road.
“It’s like you said, Olivia. Life’s too short to mince words. Our existence is measured in minutes. Seconds. Heartbeats. Time is the most valuable commodity we have, because it can never be replenished. Once it’s gone…it’s gone forever. And so are we.”
A powerful wave of emotion sweeps over me. That head-smack of recognition again, kicking me between the eyes.
I’m such a fool. He hasn’t been with anyone for the same reason I haven’t: desire is the first thing that grief kills, before it kills everything else.
I think of those portraits of his, all those lovingly detailed renderings of human anguish, and want to curl into a ball and cry.
Whatever happened to him, whatever toll life has forced him to pay, and has inspired his morbid obsession with immortalizing the faces of people grieving, and has drawn him straight into my arms like a moth to a flame, it’s just as terrible as what I’ve been through.
I exhale an unsteady breath and say in a tight voice, “I’m an asshole.”
He knows exactly what I mean. Shaking his head, he reaches for me. “No.”
“Yes. Oh God, I’m so sorry. I should’ve known you didn’t have an STD.”
“You couldn’t have known. It was a legitimate question. And stop apologizing, goddammit.”
He tucks me under his shoulder and winds his arms around me. I curl both my legs over his. Into his neck, I whisper, “Oh, James, I feel like such an idiot.”
“Why?”
“Because I sometimes forget that other people have had bad things happen to them, too. I forget I’m not the only one walking around with a hole in my chest where a heart used to be. I had no idea how self-centered I’d become…or how isolated. How I’d spend almost every waking moment feeling as if I’d been stranded on an alien planet and there was nothing left for me to do but take scientific notes about the hostile native life forms while I waited around to die.”
A sound breaks from his chest. A chuckle of amusement or a gentle snort of disbelief, I don’t know which. Then I feel his lips press against my hair and hear his sigh.
“God, you talk in long sentences. Hemingway wouldn’t approve.”
I nudge him with my elbow. “Shut up.”
“Make me.”
When I lift my head, he’s smiling. The heat is creeping back into his eyes.
“By the way,” he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to my mouth, “that was a very personal speech you just delivered. You little rule breaker, you.”
I tuck my head into the crook between his neck and shoulder and close my eyes. “Last one. Scout’s honor.”
“You were a Girl Scout?”
I gently tease, “Hello, personal question.”
“s**t. You’re right. Strike that.”
Smiling, feeling safe in his arms, I say, “I was in the Girl Scouts…until they threw me out.”
When I’m silent too long, he says, “That’s evil. You can’t just dangle that out there and not expect a follow up question!”
“Let your imagination run wild.”
He growls, “Oh, I’ll let something run wild all right, but it won’t be my imagination.”
He grasps my jaw in his hand and crushes his mouth to mine.
8
I
t turns out to be convenient that I didn’t lock the apartment door on the way out, because it means I don’t have to stop kissing James to dig through my handbag for keys on the way in.
I simply turn the knob and we go right back at it.
We fall through the door, kissing madly. I drop my handbag on the floor. James kicks the door shut behind us, then pushes me against the wall and pins me there, his chest flush with mine. He clasps both my wrists in one of his big hands and holds my arms behind my back as he kisses me hard in the unlit entryway, his free hand firmly gripping my face.
It’s hot. It’s insanely hot, dominant, and passionate, just this side of rough.
When we stop to gasp for air, I start laughing.
“Oh my God, this is just like in the movies!”
“Only better,” he says in a husky tone, blue eyes glowing with lust. “Because it’s real.”
“It can’t possibly get better than this,” I say, panting. “Maybe we should stop at kissing, because this is absolutely epic—”
I yelp in shock when he swiftly bends and throws me over his shoulder.
The man throws me over his shoulder! Wait until I tell Kelly about this!
“We’re not stopping,” he growls, striding into the living room as I swing from his shoulder like something he caught in a trap in the forest and is bringing home to eat.
Laughter threatens to break from my mouth again, so I bite my lip to stop it. I feel crazed, possessed by the weirdest mix of glee and terror, like the feeling you get when you’re at the tippy top of a high, dangerous roller coaster, just about to crest over the edge and go zooming recklessly down.
James tosses me onto my back on the living room sofa. I bounce, once, then stare up at him wide-eyed as my heart threatens to burst inside my chest.
I’ve had panic attacks less severe than this.
He gazes at me with unwavering intensity as his fingers fly over the buttons of his shirt. “You look scared.”
“Shitless,” I admit, shaking. “You better hurry up and take off your clothes before I suffer some kind of serious health crisis and you have to call an ambulance.”
His shirt parts under his fingers. He shrugs out of it and lets it drop to the floor.
And I simply stare up at him with my mouth open.
Maybe God doesn’t hate me so much after all, because if he, she, or it did, I’d never have been given something as incredible as this.
He’s.
Fucking.
Perfect.
- Writer
