Chapter 38
VI
I find Armen in the Skylight Room. He’s reading, which is what he’s been doing when he has an unscheduled moment. He’s got something thick and worn with a faded cover in his hands and looks up when I come in, but doesn’t close his book.
I sit down beside him on the couch, our legs touching. He’s warm and solid, and when I’m next to him it’s so comforting I want to stay there all day.
He finishes his page and folds the corner down like every librarian tells you not to. He sets the book on the arm of the couch and turns to me with that steady attention that makes you feel like the only person in the world.
“What’s going on with Sting?” I ask.
His face stays open and neutral, giving me nothing, which is a dead giveaway for something going on. “He’s working through something.”
“Armen.”
He looks at me, calm and unhurried. He’s weighing something, not whether to trust me whether telling me will make things better or worse.
“Give him room,” he says. “This isn’t about you.”
“I think it is about me.”
“I know.”
His hand comes up and settles on the back of my neck, his thumb tracing the line where my hair meets my skin and I lean into him. I can’t help it. The last three days of Sting’s distance have left me starving for contact, for the feeling of being wanted by someone who’s not erasing me.
“Is he pulling away from me?”
“No,” Armen says. “He’s not pulling away from you.”
“Then what’s he pulling away from?”
Armen’s thumb stops moving on my neck but his hand stays. “He read the papers, Vi.”
I open my eyes. “Okay. And what about it?”
“He read them. All of them.”
I stare at him. Sting read the papers. Okay. I figured he would.
“And how do you know this?”
“Because I know him.”
“Did he say anything? About what he found?”
Armen shakes his head. “He hasn’t said much of anything to anyone. That’s the point. Whatever he found in those papers, he’s working through.”
Then he kisses me with one hand on my neck, the other on my waist pulling me closer.
I climb into his lap, straddling him. One hand slides down to my hips while the other wanders under my shirt. He cups my breast, his thumb dragging across my nipple, and my hips roll against him involuntarily. He’s hard beneath me and the wanting is so sharp and sudden, it makes my head swim.
“Armen,” I say. It comes out half plea, half question.
He pulls back, just enough to look at me. “You’re upset.”
“I want to fuck,” I say. “There’s a difference.”
His hands tighten on my hips, pulling me closer, letting me feel how hard he is, his thumb still circling my nipple. His other hand slides to the base of my spine, pressing me into him.
Then he lifts my shirt over my head, unhurried, folds it, and sets it on the arm of the couch on top of his book. He unclasps my bra, eases it off, and takes my breast in his mouth. His tongue is warm, slow, and thorough.
My head falls back. “Armen,” I say. “Please.”
“I’m getting there.”
“Get there faster.”
He looks up at me. Almost smiles. “No.”
God, this man. He’s going to kill me with his patience.
He lifts me off his lap, stands me up, and removes what’s left of my clothing. I’m naked in the Skylight Room with Armen fully clothed.
“You’re staring,” I say.
“Yup,” he says. “I am.”
He pulls his own shirt off, undoes his belt, and pushes his pants down. Then he reaches for me, pulling me back onto his lap.
“You ready?” he asks.
“Armen. I have been since I sat down on this couch.”
He guides me down onto his cock, slow, inch by inch, watching my face the entire time. When he’s all the way inside, I stop breathing for a second.
“Okay?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I murmur, grabbing his shoulders for purchase.
I start to move and he lets me set the pace at first. I ride him, feeling every inch, my forehead against his.
Then his grip tightens, one hand on my ass and the other tangled in my hair. He takes over, not rough but firm, pulling me down onto him harder, deeper, his rhythm steady and relentless.
“Right there,” I gasp. “Don’t stop.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
The combination of him inside me, filling me, his mouth on my throat, is perfect. I’m climbing toward something enormous.
“Armen. I’m going to—”
“I know.” He pulls back to look at my face and even with his cock inside me, his eyes are calm. “Go ahead.”
So I do. Hard. An orgasm rolls through me in waves, my whole body vibrating around him, my fingers digging into his shoulders. He holds me through it, steady, not stopping until I’m writhing with pleasure.
Then he goes for it. His rhythm breaks, his hips driving up into me, his breath ragged against my ear. He comes with a low groan, his arms tightening around me, his face pressed into my shoulder.
We catch our breath, still connected, with my arms around his neck, his around my waist, breathing together. After a while, he eases me off him and settles me beside him. His arm around me, my head against his shoulder.
“So Sting read the papers,” I say into Armen’s shoulder.
“Yeah.”
“And he’s pulling away.”
“He’s processing.”
“Same thing, if you ask me.”
He doesn’t argue. I close my eyes and think about what it means that Sting read everything and his response was to withdraw.
Not to come to me to say I was wrong or tell me more or even we need to talk.
He read the evidence and retreated into himself.
The distance I’ve been feeling for three days is the sound of a man who saw something he can’t handle.
In my mind, that means he read it and can’t or won’t accept it, that the evidence confirmed what he already believed.
No matter what those papers say, he can’t get past the fact that my father was a city official and his mother died because city officials didn’t give a shit.
The corruption, my dad, Dorothy’s nursing home, the budget cuts, it’s all the same to him. One system. One machine.