Page 27 of Rescued Duty
His arm tightens around my chest, and he presses a silent kiss to my collarbone.
It would be so easy to let his touch consume me until nothing else matters, but it feels important that we finish our conversation before that happens.
“How about we just have normal human conversations instead of panicking from here on out?”
His teeth nip at my skin with a chuckle. “Well, that sounds far less interesting.”
I walk my fingers up his spine. “I’m thinking we can come up with more enjoyable ways to keep things interesting.”
“Mmmm.” He stretches against my side, rolling his still sweat-sticky naked leg further over mine. “But, in the spirit of at least attempting to have…” he shifts his tone to one of playful mockery as he utters his next two words, “open communication, do you want to try to tell me for the third time why Max called you this morning?”
“Hmm?”
I’m suddenly too distracted by the way his heavy thigh is now pressing against my quickly hardening cock to pay much attention to anything more than the way his words are rumbling vibrations against my chest.
“Max. You said she called with a proposition?”
“Oh. Ya, she did.” I shift my attention back to his words and my hand over to his, threading our fingers together on my belly. “The gallery is going to have an exhibition next month. One night only, one local artist per medium. She’s asked me if I’d be open to displaying the collection I’m working on as the entry for glass.”
Ethan leans up on an elbow, propping his head in his hand. “Blue, that’s amazing. I mean, clearly, you’re amazingly talented. I don’t know a lot about art, but even I can see that. It has to be so fulfilling to be chosen for something like that.”
“It is.” I nod. “It’s also terrifying. I mean, it’s nearly impossible to make a living as a glass artist, at least with sculptural things. If you’re open to working at a glass production house, you can usually find a decent salary, I guess, but that’s not the same thing as getting to create work that offers up pieces of your soul, you know. It’s just putting things together the way the work orders say to. My whole life, I’ve told myself that while it’s rewarding to sell a few pieces at the gallery now and again, I have to be careful to remember that kind of success is temporary, and what matters is the way it feels to create art. That way, I won’t end up disappointedby the fact it will never pay my bills. Displaying at an almost solo exhibition could change that. It’s not very likely, but it could, and it’s terrifying to think about finding myself in a place where I potentially have so much to lose.”Like I am with you.
He leans in close, his evergreen eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiles and presses featherlight kisses against my lips, my forehead, my throat. Each one punctuating a single word.
“I” - kiss - “believe” - kiss - “in” - kiss - “you.” Kiss.
I don’t know if he has more to say on the matter. Four drawn-out mumbled words with his lips pressed to my skin are all I can handle before I wrap him in my arms, roll us over, and pin him against the mattress for hours.
Ethan
“Ethan?”
I’m so startled by the sound of my name that I nearly spill the full cup of coffee I’d forgotten was in my hand all over my desk, computer, notes, and a printed copy of the budget proposal for the gallery I’ve been proofreading all morning. Could I proofread on my computer like any other human? Probably, but for some reason, I feel like I do a better job of catching tiny issues when actual paper is in front of me. Max is wearing an almost motherly, amused smile when I finally pull my mess together and look up to figure out what drew me out of my revelry.
I’ve accomplished very little this morning other than daydreaming about Blue. The past two months have been unlike anything I’ve ever known or imagined. Even the seven months I was lucky enough to call Jordyn my own weren’t quite like this. It’s not that I feel like I love Blue more than I loved Jordyn, but I certainly love him differently. He’s so open and self-assured about himselfand his life, and that confidence has spilled over into our romantic relationship. When we walk down the street together, his fingers are laced through mine. Every single time. When we sit side by side in the coffee house or at a club on Friday Night Friend Dates or on the rare evening that our schedules align to the point we’re able to go out to dinner, he always settles next to me with his hand on my thigh or his arm around my shoulders. He kisses my cheek and leans our heads against one another and whispers conspiratorial jokes and sweet nothings in my ear without giving any thought to who might see us. When we’re watching TV or I’m working from his couch late at night, our limbs are tangled together as if they’re not capable of existing on their own anymore. We’ve never had to hide, never had to worry, never had to wonder, because Blue simply doesn’t care about what anyone else thinks. All that matters to him is us. It’s new and scary and so absolutely and completely freeing to know that the fact he is mine and I am his isn’t conditional.
I was only ever allowed to love Jordyn in secret, not just because of the way the rest of the world might have reacted, but because that’s what Jordyn needed. I understand that now, and it doesn’t dim or taint the way that I loved him, the way I love him still, but I’m grateful that loving Blue is different. I’m grateful for the way he touches me and smiles at me as if nothing else in the world exists when I’m around.
We spend our nights wrapped in one another’s arms, and the way I tremble and keen at the slightesttouch, the way we cling to one another, the way our bodies curl and fit together so utterly perfectly as we move in smooth, practiced rhythms will always be something indescribable and precious. I never dreamed sex could feel the way it does with Blue, never believed that books and movies and my wildest imaginings couldn’t even come close to the reality of his body sliding against or around or inside mine.
When we’re not together - when we’re working, or Blue is at the hot shop - his soul lingers at the edges of mine as if we’re never truly apart. The stray scent of apple shampoo in a store, the glint of light bouncing off a stranger’s eyebrow piercing, even the sound of incoming ocean waves that I know are the color blue of stormy and soulful eyes - a thousand small things a day are enough to pull me away from reality and send my mind dancing through dreams and memories and moments, and it’s hard to believe that it’s real. That the scenes that pull me away aren’t imaginary, and this is actually my life. More and more these days, I find myself floating in a trance, trying to keep my expression professional and my mind on my work. It’s something I’m quickly coming to realize I’m not very successful at if Max was able to sneak-attack me even though I knew she was at the gallery, the floors are hardwood and slightly echoey, and I had my door wide open.
“Sorry.” I cringe and gesture to the chair across from me. Not that she needs an invitation to sit at her own desk in her own studio, but it feels like the polite thing to do. We talk from time to time outside ourformally scheduled owners’ meetings, but she rarely seeks me out in the little sanctuary I’ve created for myself surrounded by plants and papers and a small stack of books and financial publications in the small upstairs office.
Max treats me the same way she seems to treat everyone else at the gallery, and I’ll always be grateful for that. While everyone has been open and welcoming, Max has made me feel like one of her team rather than an outsider by offering gentle, well-placed suggestions and randomly asking my opinion about artworks and gallery business items that aren’t directly related to my position here. By settling coffee on my desk without a word on the days late afternoon arrives without warning and she notices that I’ve been in the office all day. She doesn’t really know me, not the way Blue or Gabriel do, but she’s welcomed me into the gallery that’s been her life for thirty years with kind smiles and subtle teasing and zero hesitation. She treats me like I’m one of her own, and it’s a welcome change from the professional distance and half-smiles that I’m used to at work.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. I quite often find myself drifting away into my own thoughts in the way you seemed to be just now. When I was younger, I told myself it was because I had a vivid imagination and a strong sense of wanderlust. These days, I just wonder if I’m slowly losing my marbles.” She settles into the chair with a grace I’ve rarely encountered, her long white hair floating around her like a gossamer veil.
“I don’t think you really believe that.” I grin, knowing she’s simply joking. Gentle humor seems to be her way of breaking the ice everywhere she goes.
“No. I don’t really mean that, of course, but the fact that you know I don’t mean it is interesting, don’t you think?”
“I, umm…” I struggle to come up with something witty to say because simply staring at her with a confused expression doesn’t exactly instill confidence from the man she’s entrusted with the future of her business, but I don’t quite understand what she means.
She settles back into the chair, hands clasped lightly in her lap as if she doesn’t have a care in the world.
“How are things going, Ethan?”
