Chapter 16
16
W hen I wake, there’s a dip in the mattress where Jae used to be. It’s early morning, not earlier than seven o’clock. Panic rises in my chest when I don’t see him. My eyes dart around the room, and I find him. He’s there, standing in the corner of my bedroom, pulling on his shirt and pants.
“Where are you going?” My voice is a rustle of leaves in the wind.
“To take a shower and get some clothes. I’ll be back.” He walks towards me, his undershirt gone and his linen shirt unbuttoned exposing his supple, malleable skin.
“When?” I admire his tattoos. I want to trace them all. I want to paint them all.
“Soon.”
He curls his arms around me and delicately kisses my lips. Morning breath, who? I should have let him use my shower.
As soon as he’s out the door, I wiggle free from my covers and inspect myself in the mirror. I should take a shower too. I undress one by one, imagining Jae taking my clothes off of me. The thought sends a shiver up and down my spine. I can’t believe I slept in my bathrobe. The last time I did that I was sick with the flu.
I turn the hot water on, and Lily whines at my feet.
“I’ll be quick. Promise.” She plops down on my bathroom rug in response.
I rinse out my mangled curls and detangle them with my fingers. I quickly but thoroughly scrub the important parts of my body before dousing myself in cold water. Lily’s anxious cries become more and more persistent.
“Okay, okay!” I tell her. I turn the water off and slip back into my bathrobe. Normally, I hate taking her out while commando like this, but she’s running out of time.
I do my hair quickly up into a plopped towel and toe on a pair of sneakers, and instead of leashing her, I just pick Lily up and after locking the door, quickly run down the stairs with her in my arms. I reach the grass out front, and I promptly plop her down to do her business.
She makes a point to sniff around for an extra-long time. That cheeky dog.
As soon as she’s finished, I pick her up and march back inside. When I unlock the front door, I’m surprised to see that Jae is already waiting for me at my kitchen island, dressed in his chef’s whites.
“Where were you?” he asks swiftly.
“I took Lily out.”
“Only in your robe?”
“What are you talking about?” Does he know? Lily wiggles out of my arms and greets Jae like he’s just another friendly face, and not the man intent on getting on my nerves at 7:30 in the fucking morning.
The chiding grin on his face says he certainly knows.
“Are you naked under there, Riley?”
I freeze up and hearing him say the word naked makes me blush harder than I ever thought I could. “It’s none of your business if I am or not.”
“It is my business if my girlfriend is going outside in only her bathrobe.”
“I am wearing clothes.” I chide.
I am definitely not wearing clothes.
“Prove it. Take it off.”
I get ready to undo the belt of my robe, a fiendish grin sprawling on my face, but before I can give him an eyeful, I bolt into my bedroom. Jae laughs, following me. He wraps his arms around my neck, and I hang on to him like my life depends on it. He presses kisses into my cheek, my forehead, my neck, and I stand there and take it like the champ I am.
“Every second I spend without you is like eternity,” Jae whispers into a kiss behind my ear. “Where have you been all my life?”
“Waiting until you were ready for me,” is my answer. My hands follow no laws as they climb up into his hair. I kiss him like a threat. Kiss me back, or else. Kiss me back, or you won’t live to regret it. I grab his arms, his chest, his ass, anything I can get my little hands on.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for you.” Jae pulls me to him, closer than I thought possible, his hand at the base of my spine. I leech energy from him. He fuels me. “You’re too much.”
“But you have to be. I’m ready.” I swallow even though there’s nothing in my throat. Jae moves his hands to cup my face. I am a boiling kettle, and he is the fire from within, the burner on a stove, the campfire in the wilderness. “You don’t have to be,” I falter.
“I’m ready,” he replies.
“You’re amazing,” is all I have to say to him.
His hands have moved from my cheeks to my temples to my scalp.
“You are taking this agonizingly slow,” I remark.
“What’s the rush?” Jae’s hands are fiddling at the tie of my bathrobe. “I think you’re the one taking this slow.”
I have no answer except to wrap a finger around an empty belt loop. I’m going to do this and have a shit ton to talk about at therapy next time, I yank his waist closer to mine like I’m some kind of wildebeest.
“Why are you always in this bathrobe?” he asks.
“I live in this bathrobe. Why are you always in my apartment?”
“You invited me in.” Jae’s hands have moved from the tie to place a hand on each of my hips.
“You were at my door. You didn’t have to come in.”
“Are you always this defensive?” Jae squeezes my hip tighter before removing his hands and holding them palm up in surrender.
We are face to face, nose to nose, eyelash to eyelash.
“Yes.”
He’s teasing me, and I’m endlessly frustrated with myself because I don’t know if I want to smack him or screw him. My hands are shaking when I reach up to touch his face. He has a small amount of stubble, like he shaved yesterday but not this morning, and his clear eyes study my every move.
“Take your time, Riley. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
I’m sure of what I want, as sure as the tide rolls up the beach. I spread my fingers over his cheeks, running my thumb over his lips. I’m the one in charge here.
Jae knows it too. His arms are limp at his sides, waiting for my instruction and guidance, and I place them on my bathrobe ties. He unknots my bathrobe but doesn’t take it off.
“Stop antagonizing me. Participate a little,” I command. Or participate a lot.
In response, Jae shifts the bathrobe off my left shoulder. Then my right. Then down both arms. He carries it delicately in his arms and sets it on the back of my dressing chair. It feels like such an intimate act, a declaration of love, because although it’s only a bathrobe, it feels like he’s removed whatever armor I had left.
Standing there, naked, he approaches me once more, and before I can make a break and run for it, he kisses me fiercely, and I am stalled completely. He kisses away all of my worries, all my doubts about this, and I tell him thank you with my kisses in return.
“Fuck, Riley,”
Jae puts a tender hand on the back of my head and uses it to control the depth of our kiss. I hand control over to him, and I am so glad he’s taken charge. I don’t think I could manage to be this smooth. My body yearns for him, and I tell him by dipping my fingers into the waistband of his pants and feeling the smoothness of his skin. Each time the pads of my fingers interact with his skin, lightning shocks run through me.
His fingers dig into my lower back, and he buries his face in the space below my neck. Jae’s hands are hotter than the sun, and they ease their way around my body, even though it’s the first time he’s touched me like this.
I force myself to squash the anxiety growing in the bottom of my tummy, that this is what I want. I’m allowed to have a good time.
I use everything in me to stomp out any fear I have, and I lift Jae’s shirt, my hands grazing his chest eagerly.
“Let me have you. I want nothing in return.”
“I’m all yours, Riley,” he tells me.
“I’m all yours, too, Jae.”
When he lifts me up off the ground, I know I’ve made the right choice. I think my heart is about to beat out of my chest when he sets me on the edge of the bed. The way he says my name sends me into another spiritual plane.
“Riley,” Jae groans, his voice gravelly.
His fingers dip and twist underneath my breasts, holding them like they fit perfectly in his hands. Which they do, I find out, when he brushes over my nipples and sends a ripple of pleasure through my body. His kisses are electric shockwaves that my heart can barely endure. It’s been so long since someone touched me like this.
I pull him closer onto me. He gently lays me flat on my back and puts his knees on either side of my waist. Jae drops feverish kisses onto my collarbones, my shoulders, my breasts, and I am too stunned to do anything but grasp at his back. Each of his touches sends heat straight between my thighs. The way his stomach curves into soft, human rolls makes me feel like I swallowed a hurricane.
“Jae. You are so fucking attractive right now.” I grab hungrily for the button of his pants and feebly undo it as he takes my nipple into his mouth, and the words are stolen right out of my mouth. I want to tell him how wet I am for him.
“Riley,” He lets out a groan. “How can you taste like this?”
I don’t know what I taste like, and I bet I taste like expired lotion, but he clearly is into it, and that’s all that matters to me. He drops lower onto me, and I feel the weight of his erection push into me. Oh fuck. He’s so hard, I can feel him through his pants.
“Do you know how badly I want you?” he whispers like his life depends on it. It may as well.
“Show me,” I say, mustering all the courage I have. He presses a kiss just under my navel. The cool air is startling as he pulls away from my body. Before I can make another comment, say anything, he sinks his mouth between my legs and I let out a light gasp. He knows exactly where to put his tongue.
Jae’s finesse is impressive, to say the least. I roll my hips against his mouth and it’s my turn to groan his name. I feel the pressure building in me as he licks, my hands tangling in his hair, messing up whatever hairstyle he had left.
Something in me changes when he angles my hips upward, and the heat of his tongue becomes almost unbearable. I arch into his pull, and I press myself to his tongue just as much as he pulls into my press.
“Riley,” Jae breathes into my body.
Hearing my own name come out of his mouth, pressed against me, makes me shiver..
“Your cunt tastes so good.” He rewards me with a pucker of his lips and I am ready to break.
“I’m—” I start but can’t finish. All that comes out of me are fragments of sentences.
This is a shipwreck for me. He is the island, the water, and the boat.
I am awash in Jae as I buck against his face, his tongue managing final strokes as I bite on my own tongue. I shake to my core and let go.. I am fraught with a wave of something so intense I can’t put a name to it because I haven’t felt it in so long.
“That’s the first time I’ve had an orgasm with a man in three years.” I finally groan.
Jae barks a short laugh, and he climbs his way up to my face, his lips still swollen and red from me, and I pull him into a kiss. His erection presses into my thigh like an iron rod.
“Can I touch you?” I ask against his lips.
“You can do anything you want, Riley.”
I yank his pants down with unbridled desire, and he manages to kick them off his ankles. He clambers back on top of me, pushing his hands to hold the sides of my breasts.
“Jeez,” I wheeze.
He shushes me with a taste of his tongue.
“Jeez yourself.”
I tuck my hand into one side of his black briefs to cup the curve of his ass. It’s unbelievably smooth. No man should have an ass this smooth. I tuck in the other hand and hold him above me, although he carries most of his weight on his knees. My head is almost flat against my headboard, Jae’s knees on either side of me.
I slide my hands around to the front and grip his erection in my hands. He’s fucking huge.
“Fuck me, Riley,” Jae breathes out quickly through his nose.
“Literally?” I ask.
“No, figuratively,” His voice is strained and uneven when I run my hand up and down his length. Touching him is one thing, but seeing him is another. I pull his briefs down to expose him and my eyes are so, so hungry.
“I can’t stop looking at you,” I tell him as I make him sit back on his knees on top of me. I run my hands up to his chest and graze his nipples lightly with my fingertips. I return to his cock, gripping his tip with my fist. Jae tips his head back in response. I squeeze up and down his length.
“Riley, you’re just teasing me,” Jae exhales a deep breath.
“Show me what to do?” I ask him.
Eyes closed, he places his hands over mine, and helps me pump in a steady rhythm. Once I get the hang of it, he releases my hands. I feel rusty at this, but Jae’s passionate groans tell me I’m doing just fine. His chest is rising and falling so quickly.
“Your hands are so soft,” Jae grunts.
I feel him tense, sitting on top of me—he’s holding back.
“Jae,” I whisper. “I want you to finish.”
“Are you sure? Where?”
“On me,” I answer, squeezing him. Jae opens his eyes, and they’re burning black.
“Fuck, yes, Riley,” A groan escapes his lips, and his back muscles flex before he finishes onto my chest in a heave. He bends over and kisses me, his tongue dipping into my mouth, before climbing off me. We stare at each other for a moment, in awe of what just happened, while Jae catches his breath. He disappears into my adjoining bathroom, returning with a wet wipe.
He cleans me off gently, and I sit up. Jae hands me my bathrobe, and I gingerly cover up.
“I—” I start, unsure of what I’m going to say next.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Jae tells me.
“You’re—you’re just so good,” I laugh, my ears hot.
Jae grins. “Get dressed, let’s go to the restaurant. I’ll be in the kitchen, okay?”
I dress quickly in my painting coveralls. I tie up my hair and do my makeup in my small bedroom mirror. It isn’t like me to wear makeup often, but I want to impress the man sitting in my kitchen. I so badly want to be the rosy-cheeked girl he claims to be seeing.
It’s Monday, and our usual routine is certainly shattered. Instead of meeting Jae in the lobby, I meet him in my living room. Today will be the day I finish the mural, a week ahead of schedule.
We walk hand in hand out of the building, like a real couple would, and stop at Sheila's for pastries and tea. We walk to the restaurant this morning instead of taking the subway and by the time we get there it’s almost nine o’clock.
I contemplate messing up the mural just to drag it out longer to spend more time with him. As Jae unlocks the door and steps inside, he pauses to take in the nearly finished mural.
There is really not much left to do. Add some finishing touches to the couple standing on the shore of the lake, and perhaps to the trees and mountains in the background. A week to dry to be safe, and it’ll be ready to have patrons sitting in front of it.
Jae asks the question I’ve been sitting on the answer to.
“When will you be finished?” he asks.
“Today,” I tell him, honestly. “I don’t think I’ll need much more time.”
A few weeks ago, I was looking forward to this day, but now I dread it. No more walking to the restaurant with Jae in the morning. No more chatting the day away while doing something I love. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to see him every day again. There is no way he can stay over at my place every single night.
“It looks beautiful, Riley,” he tells me.
“Of course it does,” I laugh. “I wouldn’t paint you a shitty painting.”
“What will you do next?”
“I’m not sure. Look for another commission, I guess.” Normally, when I’m on top of my game, I have another lined up as one finishes, but I’ve been so distracted with my budding romance that I’ve totally forgotten. I fidget in front of the mural, holding my paint brush box, unsure where to start or what to say to Jae. We stand side-by-side to look at the work. “I was thinking about putting up a sign in the building lobby offering painting lessons.”
“I have a proposal for you.” Jae sticks his hand out like he’s writing a checklist in the air. “Paint with my mother..”
“Your mother?”
“Yeah. I’d love to set up and pay you for a few lessons. She used to love to paint when I was a child. Maybe painting will help her feel better about her MS diagnosis.”
“You don’t feel weird about paying me?”
“Why would I? My feelings for you are totally separate from our professional relationship. You are an excellent painter, Riley.”
“I’m pleased to hear that.” I smile at him. “I look forward to scheduling it. Can I kiss you?”
“Why couldn’t you?” Jae turns towards me, his hands moving to my elbows, moving my arms around his waist.
“We’re at your restaurant. Someone might see!” Despite my reservations, my hands flatten against the small of his back, eager to get their fill of his body before I have to start painting.
“I haven’t been keeping you a secret.” Jae’s voice changes to a serious tone I’ve only heard him use once or twice. “I knew I wanted you the moment I laid eyes on you.” Jae confirms my hopes. He didn’t just buy me tea or help me for no reason. He did swipe on me on purpose.
“You’re a better person than I am.” I turn to hide my face and the devilish laugh I can’t help but release. “I only started liking you after I saw your dating app profile photos.”
“I forgive you, Riley,” Jae teases.
“You’re easy on the eyes, what can I say?” I have no chance at defending myself. I look back at him with a smile plastered to my face. Is this what being happy is like?
“Do you want to know a secret?” Jae whispers in my ear, his voice suddenly sultry and authentic, the teasing totally gone.
“Absolutely I do.”
“I didn’t know you were actually naked under your bathrobe. It was just a lucky guess.” I can hear his smile pressed up against my ear.
“You little shit. ”
“Hey, hey, be nice now.” He presses a kiss to my earlobe.
“I’m always nice.” I turn my cheek to his lips, and he kisses it straight away. His lips are like hot fire and ash on my cool skin.
I bring my arms up to his neck, and I’m almost standing on his toes, but I reach up and brush my lips against his. It’s fucking delicious. He tastes like fresh lemon, a fresh start, and like everything I’d been missing the last three years. I can’t get enough.
We probably look like two horny teenagers making out in the restaurant, but I feel rejuvenated. He’s awakened something in me I didn’t know I had left. He wraps his hands around the curve of my ass and picks me up to set me on the table in front of the mural. Jae leans forward over me, sliding his tongue over mine in a way that says you’re wanted; you’re home; you’re safe.
I am terrified by what this kiss means to me, but I can’t help but mirror his strength and return his desire back equally, if not fiercer. He’s the opposite of Grant in every way, but I can’t help but need him. My mind snaps. Don’t compare him to Grant. He’s amazing in his own right.
He towers over me. His hands rest on my thighs, the table now bearing the brunt of my weight, while his tongue does things to me that make me want to unravel completely.
Before I can let my anxiety stop me, I start fumbling with the buttons on his chef’s jacket. His hands are caressing my sides in a way that makes me want to be undressed again. He’s unzipping the front of my coveralls, and I’m desperate to get hands on skin whether it’s his on mine, or mine on his. Are we going to do this in a restaurant?
I hear the bells on the front of the restaurant door jingle lightly. I’m the one who jumps.
Busted. We are not going to do this in a restaurant.
“Christ, you two.” I can hear the eye roll in Murphy’s voice. “I’ll be damned, the one day I come to work early, I catch my boss acting like he’s in a porno.”
Jae’s lips are bright pink and swollen from my hungry kisses, his hair mildly tousled, his collar lopsided, and I bet I look worse than him.
“What kind of softcore porn are you watching?” Jae fires back, doing up the four buttons I managed to undo. All I can manage to do is blink and try to retie my hair. Murphy makes his way back to the kitchen, not even bothering to answer Jae.
“I have work to do, darling.” Jae kisses the top of my head. I’m still sitting on the table mildly stunned. “But I’ll check on you in a bit.” Before I can say anything, he too disappears into the kitchen.
I press the back of my hand to my lips, as if I can’t believe I just did that.
I really can’t believe I just did that.
Jae brings out something totally different in me that I never saw when I was with Grant. Has this part of me been here the whole time? I don’t know. I guess dry humping in a restaurant gets a girl to reflect.
Even though she’s a nameless, unidentified figure, I add flecks of red to the woman’s hair and flecks of golden yellow to the man’s eyes. It isn’t until I’m painting the curls of her hair, and the curve of a tattoo that I realize I’m painting Jae and me.
I’ve been painting us this whole time.
Us sitting on the banks of the East River. But instead of New York City as the backdrop, it’s an unknown mountain range. Somewhere else is the only place I imagine really being with Jae. New York City had always been Grant’s.
But maybe it could belong to both of them.
It has to.
I am in love with him.
With who? I ask myself. With who?
I picture them side by side.
Jae gets old and wrinkled. Grant stays twenty-three. Jae holds me and caresses me. Grant is in pixels on a screen. Jae is a real man who moves and talks and is animated. Grant is an old home movie, a memory that skips and has repeated tics. Jae is undeniably bright, and bursting at the seams with love and devotion. Grant is a rock in a pile of dirt, perpetually six feet of distance between us.
You can’t be in love with a dead man.
In the past, I would have said: If I love anything as much as I love you, let my head be cleaved from my neck.
But now, there’s Jae. He’s here. He’s alive. He’s warm and impassioned and ardent. I’d keep him and throw myself away for him. He would do the same for me.
I love him.
I would be beside myself if I couldn’t have him.
I have to tell him. And I will. But not yet. I have barely just admitted it to myself. I want to be sure. Is a month of knowing someone too soon to tell? Have I just latched on to the first person who gave me the time of day?
I know that isn’t true. Jae and I are not so different after all. If he was jam, I was preserves. Stalactite and stalagmite. Cardamom and cinnamon. Rosemary and thyme. Riley and her man. I love him for him, not because of his convenience.
I love him.
Not loved, but love.
I make sure to paint a tattoo on the man.
Later that afternoon, after Jae walks me to my front door, leaving Murphy to handle closing The Red Kettle, only smelling a little like fish, he hands me a crisp white envelope.
“What's this?”
“Open it and look.”
It’s a check.
“What is this?” I repeat.
“Pay your rent, Riley.”
“What?”
“I said, pay your rent.” Jae crosses his arms. “Until you find a better place. It’s payment for the mural.”
“I can’t take this, Jae.” I feel tears well in my eyes. I’m a crier. What can I say? “I can’t take this,” I tell him again.
“Riley, if you don’t take it, I’ll go to Stuart and pay your rent myself.”
“You might have to do that.” I chuckle through a single tear, swearing to myself not to cry. “But I’ll do it. Because you asked.”
“Good,” Jae wraps me into a salmon-smelling hug. “I’ll call you when I get home, okay?”
“Okay.”
I send him off with a short kiss as he bounds down the hallway towards the stairs. His long legs get him there much faster than I wished.
I take Lily out for a walk. I find some familiarity in my old routines, and I run some errands. On the subway, I scour Craigslist, job boards and online groups for opportunities to advertise painting lessons.
I don’t know what qualifies me to teach, other than my degree and my portfolio, but maybe someone out there is interested if Jae is, and by the end of the day, I have two other clients lined up.
***
When my phone rings around 10:00 p.m. I can’t pick up fast enough.
“Hello?” I answer, as if I don’t know who it is.
“It’s me.” Jae’s voice is dark and stormy.
“How was your day?”
“I missed you. That’s pretty much how my day was. How was yours?”
“I planned some fun things for your ma and me to do for our first lesson. I wish I could see you right now.”
“Please don’t tell me where you are, or I’ll let myself in.” Jae’s voice crackles huskily over the phone.
Sixty-five heartbeats feel like an eternity when there’s silence on the line.
I hear a knock on my door. Has he been waiting outside my door? When I hear the click of my lock and the beep of the phone, I know it’s him.
“Jae,” is all I can manage to whisper. “Just let yourself in.”
Standing in my living room, I’m greeted immediately by an untamed, unrelenting kiss that I’ve been waiting for since this morning.
There’s no turning back now.