“Sometimes things get a little gushy,” I explained.
“No need to explain.” He sat up and shook out his arms, which he’d been propped up on.
“It’s normal for some girls,” I said.
He chuckled. “Really. There’s no need to explain. I’m familiar.”
I squinted at him suspiciously. Had he heard something from someone?
“The girlfriend who liked shopping,” he quickly added.
I pushed myself back from the puddle and threaded my naked foot back through my underwear and jeans. Adrian took his cue and started to get dressed as well, even though he looked ready for the next round.
As we got back off the floor and surveyed the situation, I wondered what he was thinking. I got some towels and cleaned up the floor while he took the chicken out of the oven and apologized for using up most of the sauce “on some other chick.”
Maybe he wasn’t thinking about anything. I’ve heard that about guys—they can enjoy a blank computer screen inside their mind, whereas any woman will have the equivalent of a hundred windows open, everything going at once. I thought about all the tasks involved in moving the bookstore, the censored version of the evening I would tell Shayla, and about how many calories were in a blowjob when you accounted for the energy used in the blowing. My mind kept whirring. I thought about making some excuse and running out the door, and just running until I didn’t have to think about anything anymore.
CHAPTER 8
After eating our dinner, we moved over to the couch in the living room. Adrian made himself at home, stretching his long legs out and across my lap.
“Don’t be shy,” I said, patting his shins through his clothes.
We’d mostly talked about store business all through dinner, and I was tired of thinking about work. My gaze darted over to the remote control. Watching TV was tempting, but didn’t seem appropriate for a date. Then again, we’d done everything in reverse order, starting off with mind-blowing oral sex on the kitchen floor. How did you follow that?
“Swing your legs up here and I’ll rub your feet,” he said.
I lifted his legs with both hands and rotated my body so my legs were alongside his. Shayla and I sat this way sometimes, but she never offered to rub my feet.
He grabbed hold of my toes with his long, strong fingers. My eyes rolled up and I moaned, “Oh, Adrian, that feels so good.”
He kept kneading my feet, which was surprisingly pleasant and nearly as intimate as what had happened on the kitchen floor.
“Is that a new tattoo?” he asked.
I cracked my eyelids open. My ink was covered by my clothes now, but he must have seen the new tattoo inside my hip bone when I was writhing around on his tongue.
“Doves Cry,” he said.
“I was out with friends in LA one night, and pretty wasted. It could have been worse. I could have gotten Adrian Forever in a heart.”
“That would be horrible.” He grinned, his blue eyes sparkling with amusement.
“Oh, but it would be. I’d be too embarrassed to let you see, and we could only be naked together in absolute darkness.”
“What does Doves Cry mean?”
I sighed. “That I shouldn’t do shots.” He kept rubbing my feet, gently pinching each of my toes as though counting them.
I explained, “It also means that everything is fine. I get knocked down, I cry, I get up again. Everything’s going to be okay. Stuff happens to everybody.”
Adrian pushed up the sleeve of his blue T-shirt. He’d ditched his black rock-band shirts that night for a tight-fitting V-neck. He flexed his meaty bicep and turned his arm out to reveal a small, hidden tattoo I hadn’t noticed before.
“Cute!” I squealed, scrambling onto my knees to crawl along the couch toward him to get a better look. “Is that a star?”
He frowned, pretending to be deeply offended. “That’s a compass.”
“Of course! Very nice.”
His voice husky and soft, he said, “Do you know why I got a compass?”
I shifted one leg so I could get comfortable, kneel-sitting on his lap, his long legs stretched out on the sofa behind me.
Our faces were so close, I could feel his hot breath on my cheek.
I licked my lips, then said, “Is the compass so you’ll never get lost again?”
“We all get lost.”
“Just like we all cry.”
“And we keep going,” he murmured. “We keep loving.”
I froze, my breathing shallow.
“Even though we get lost in each other,” he said. “We keep—”
I kissed him. The kiss turned from tender to desperate, both of us gasping, our hands tugging at clothes and pulling our bodies closer. I rocked my hips, feeling him thickening between my legs, and I was as desperate for him as ever.