Chapter Twenty
Inside, David wiped his face dry with his shirtsleeve and tried to ignore Meredith misappropriating a tea towel from the kitchen for the same purpose.
Instead, he found himself struck by the urge to do it for him, to dry his face and pull him close and lose himself in rainwater and wildflowers and starlight.
He knew then what he wanted—what he’d wanted for the past week, or perhaps even longer—despite having spent the intervening time trying to convince himself otherwise.
With a tingle of anticipation and, yes, a bit of fear coursing through him, David went to the record cabinet and, without much debate, made a selection. As the scratchy strains of old piano music came over the speaker, a melancholy ache filled him.
He turned to Meredith, just emerging from the kitchen, and beckoned to him. Meredith tilted his head in question but made his way over to join him in front of the window.
A new song began, a single piano chord followed at once by a woman’s voice, low and yearning, and David beckoned again. “Meri. Dance with me?”
Meredith giggled, but David did not think he was laughing at him. It was a nervous laugh, as if he didn’t know what to make of it. As if he wasn’t quite sure whether the invitation was serious. “What?”
“You said before, you wanted to dance. So I’m asking you.”
“I said—oh!” Recognition dawned in his eyes. “But this isn’t Edith Piaf,” he murmured, though he took a step nearer and rested a tentative hand at David’s waist.
David was about to protest that he wasn’t meant to lead, but of course, with Meredith, all the rules went out the window.
“No.” David moved Meredith’s hand to his shoulder. “But you haven’t got on a ball gown, either.”
“Nina Simone,” he identified.
“Yes. Thought she was a bit more the speed for this sort of thing. And, of course, you don’t understand French.”
David had never been much for dancing, and now faced a moment of temporary panic. He had little idea what he was doing, but Meredith didn’t seem to mind, and they swayed gently to the slow sad music as lightning flashed outside and water streamed down the windowpanes.
For once, Meredith didn’t fill the silence with his usual chatter, and before long, he rested his head on David’s shoulder.
Gradually, one of David’s hands left his waist and traveled up his back, stroking his damp disheveled hair and brushing it aside to trace over the fine bones of his neck.
At Meredith’s quiet gasp, David gave a gentle squeeze, a kind of acknowledgment in the lightest application of pressure.
They were so close together that David was sure Meredith must hear his heart pounding in his chest. The last time—both times—had been impulsive, thoughtless, but now something had changed.
David ought to apologize for those times.
He ought, in fact, to say a great many things, but he did not know how to say them, so he simply let go and took a step back, just far enough to draw a soft sound of disappointment from Meredith.
More importantly, just far enough to make him look up.
When he did, David kissed him.
At first, Meredith didn’t quite seem to know how to respond, but then he kissed back with as much enthusiasm as he had before.
He caught David’s lower lip between his teeth and darted his tongue along it before biting down with a surprisingly pleasurable sting.
They kissed deeply, hungrily. David couldn’t get enough of Meredith’s delicious little pleading noises, or the way he clutched at David as if afraid to let go, one hand at the back of his head urging him closer.
When David finally broke away, he distantly registered Meredith breathing something that sounded like sorry.
But he still didn’t let go.
David leaned down and kissed along his throat from jawline to shoulder. He couldn’t resist returning to the point where he could feel Meredith’s pulse thrumming beneath his skin, letting his tongue drag over the spot.
“Yes—oh, David, please—”
“Anything,” he rasped out, face buried against Meredith’s neck, and found that he meant it wholeheartedly. “Anything you want.”
Meredith pulled back and cupped David’s face in both hands. “What do you want?”
“You.” David didn’t even have to think about it. “I want you properly this time.”
At first, Meredith only managed a wordless sound of assent, then, pulling himself together, suggested, “Upstairs?”
“Yes.” David straightened up and kissed him again, timing it wrong and just catching the corner of his mouth as he turned away. “After all, I’ve got to redeem myself if the best you could say last time was that you’ve had worse.”
At the top of the stairs, Meredith paused. “Go on, I’ll be right in. Had to make a few adjustments with the dress.” He started through the bathroom doorway, then leaned back out to say, “Top drawer.”
“Top—oh! Yes,” said David. “Right.” Though he’d never been one to shy away from the necessary conversations around safe sex, Meredith’s easy matter-of-factness left him unexpectedly flustered.
“Second drawer, too, if you’re feeling adventurous,” he added with a wink, and disappeared behind the door.
Half of the bedroom had been repurposed into a makeshift studio, and the entire space was as bohemian as David had expected from the few brief glimpses he’d had—beaded lampshades, mismatched throw pillows, odd trinkets scattered over every available surface.
He turned on the nearest lamp and tried not to look too hard at the artwork lining the walls.
Some pieces were Meredith’s own work and others were prints of the classics; everywhere David looked, there were stark angular lines and melting objects and creeping substances and missing faces.
No wonder Meredith had trouble sleeping.
As promised, in the top drawer of the bedside cabinet David found condoms and lube, which he set out neatly atop it. He did not quite dare to look in the second drawer.
After a moment of debate, David began to unbutton his shirt. He reached the last button as Meredith entered, now in a kimono robe tied loosely at the waist.
“I thought the idea was to take your clothes off,” David remarked.
“Yeah, only I thought you might want to undress me. People often do. I mean, not me in particular—well, also me in particular—I mean to say, I wouldn’t want to deprive you, if you like that sort of thing,” Meredith concluded.
David supposed he was glad Meredith had taken off the dress, as he’d never particularly wanted to have sex with someone wearing one—or someone wearing a ladies’ dressing gown, for that matter, yet here he was.
Perhaps it was best if he didn’t think about it too hard.
David loosened the sash of Meredith’s robe and slid it from his shoulders, letting it slip to the floor. Meredith shivered at his touch as David traced down his side, over the script tattoo on his ribs and a few raised scars above his hip that he could feel but not see. “What are these from?”
“Falling into those thornbushes like I told you about.”
David leaned in and, mistiming it again, ended up kissing him on the cheek. He kept at it, trailing open-mouthed kisses down his neck until he pulled back to glance down and trace over the lines of script once more. “And what’s this say?”
“I—what?”
David liked the way his voice had gone all breathy. He ran his thumb over the spot again, along his ribs. “This tattoo.”
“Hast du nicht alles selbst vollendet, heilig glühend Herz?”
“I can see—never mind.”
“It’s Goethe,” said Meredith with a hint of reproach.
“Mm-hm.” David leaned in and kissed the hollow of his collarbone. “I didn’t come here to discuss Goethe with you.”
“Well, you wouldn’t know it, the way you’re still dressed like you belong in a history lecture, and—oh!”
David’s fingers had found their way to one of his nipple rings, and his gentle tug at the jewelry was enough to curtail the complaint.
“Good?” he asked.
“Oh, fuck—oh, David, please, you’ve got to take off some clothes, it isn’t fair.
” Eager hands scrabbled at the hem of his undershirt, and in no time David found himself stripped to the waist. Meredith was somehow touching him all over at once, stroking his back and running his fingers through his chest hair and leaning in to nip at his shoulder.
“Hey, now,” warned David, “you just watch those sharp little teeth of yours.”
“Oh, do you mind? ’M sorry,” murmured Meredith without lifting his head, every word burning against David’s skin, and pressed an apologetic kiss to the same spot.
“Well…no, I can’t say I do,” admitted David. In truth, there was something unexpectedly arousing about that little spark of pain.
Meredith did look up at him then, a wild stormy light in his eyes. This time, the sharpness in his smile made David’s heart race with anticipation. “Good. Because I wasn’t joking when I said I was a bit of a sadist.”
In order to get a handle on himself, David ran a hand up Meredith’s naked back, tracing along his spine. “But last time you wanted me to bite you.”
“Yeah,” said Meredith, as though he’d pointed out the stunningly obvious. “I like that, too. Haven’t you caught on yet, I like just about everything?”
“In that case—” David made short work of discarding his own pants and boxers, pushed Meredith down onto the bed, and lazily traced a fingertip along the winding paths of ink below his navel.
Only the erratic sparkle of his rhinestone belly ring in the lamplight betrayed how wrecked his breathing was, and he gave a little groan of frustration as David’s hand bypassed his cock and traveled down his thigh (adorned from knee to hip with a Dalí elephant).
“David,” Meredith panted, propping himself up on his elbows. “Please.”
Relenting, David wrapped a hand loosely around him, causing Meredith to whine in the back of his throat and arch up into his touch.
David stroked his cock—a bit smaller than his own, dark and straining, with a tempting bead of precome collecting at the tip—and discovered that he wanted, very badly, to have it in his mouth.