Jewel Ann - Idle Bloom

I swallow hard as he leans in and kisses my exposed neck, teasing his tongue along my sensitive skin. “However, it was nice of you to indulge my brother in his twisted take on reality.”

“He said you told him to come instead of you. Why didn’t you want to see me?” I whisper with a shaky voice as he reduces me to a nearly incoherent pile of needy lust with his touch.

He stops, rolling his shoulders back. “I did want to see you, that’s why I stayed. I knew he would stand around and flirt with the waitress instead of working and we would end up staying there until dark just to keep on schedule. So I sacrificed a few minutes with you earlier for a few hours with you now.”

How is it possible for someone to say the right words at the right time and have it sound so seamless and effortless?

I wrap my arms around him and play my fingers through his hair at the nape of his neck. “You’re smooth. I mean, Chance is smooth too, but he’s Nestle Crunch smooth. You’re Godiva chocolate truffle smooth.”

He squints one eye. “Is that a good thing?”

I give him a slow repeating nod. “Yes. One is mildly tempting during an extremely weak moment, the other is flat-out irresistible.”

“You just made my night.” He squeezes my thighs with his large hands.

You just made my entire year!

“Listen, I know we’ve only known each other for less than a week—” I start to say.

“Two weeks if you count the week on the subway that you stalked me before the doughnut mishap .”

I squint my eyes, shaking my head. “Any–way … as I was saying …” I take a deep breath because I’m getting ready to say something I need to say, but can’t explain, and he won’t understand. “What you said earlier … about noticing everything but only seeing the things that matter.”

“Yes,” he whispers.

“Will you promise not to take it back?”

“What do you—”

I move my finger to his lips. “Just … promise?”

He nods, kissing my finger. “I promise.”

After two weeks of facial skin regeneration and casual dinner dates at my place or Oliver’s, hope has popped its head over the horizon. Physically we haven’t made it past kissing and hand holding; it’s like the orgasm night never happened. I know he wants more, but never once has he tried to take the moment beyond my lead. It’s almost too much to imagine or hope that I might not spend my life as the eternal virgin.

We talk about everything and nothing at the same time with such ease of conversation. Oliver is twenty-nine, which originally I guessed he was a few years younger than that. He, however, doesn’t want to think about my age: twenty-one.

There’s an indescribable connection between us; it’s first-time excitement and aged comfort all in one. Then there is the door. That Fort Knox door across from his bathroom. I haven’t gathered the nerve to ask him about it, but I know he senses my curiosity as he’s seen me staring at it on more than one occasion. Truthfully, I fear just my asking about it will change what’s between us more than what’s actually behind it.

Oliver is ninety-nine percent outgoing, funny, sexy, caring, and spontaneous, but on occasion I see that one percent that’s a man consumed by something, someplace, or someone else. The blank stare or forced smile that comes from nowhere and leaves just as quick reminds me of the part of him that is closed to me.

“You’re staring,” Oliver says as I sit cross-legged on his counter while he scrubs the kitchen floor.

“I like the view.” I grin.

On his hands and knees, he looks up at me. “Do I need to put my shirt back on?”

“That’s like a Broadway director asking the audience if he needs to bring down the curtain in the middle of a Tony Award-winning show.”

He shakes his head and continues to scrub the sand-colored tile.

“Are we going to your place later so you can scrub your floor, topless?”

“Hmm, let me think … no.”

Oliver keeps his head down. “Am I ever going to see the tattoo on your back?”

He doesn’t skip a beat in his motions nor does he look at me. Good thing because I’m certain all color has drained from my face.

“I’ve seen the edges of the ink when you wear tank tops and pull up your hair.”

I used to make sure all my shirts covered the tattoo, but in the past few months I’ve allowed parts of it to be revealed in exchange for getting to wear the shirts I like best. I’m sure other people have noticed it, but no one else has ever asked to see it.

“Only an elite group of people have seen it.”

Oliver looks up again. “What are the qualifications for the group?”

“Basically you have to be my tattoo artist, my doctor, Alex, or Kai.”

“Kai’s seen it?”

I nod.

“How did he get in the group?”

I’m looking at the exception to every other man alive. Oliver can handle it—at least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself. I should have showed him when we first met. A proverbial laying down of the cards to say take me or leave me. But I didn’t. Now I’m too scared that I could be crushed because not only do I like him, I’ve built him up to be the man I want him to be. What if he’s not? What if it’s too soon?

“Kai was … inspiration for the tattoo.” That sounded different coming out of my mouth than it did in my head.

“Lucky guy.” Oliver continues with the task at hand. If I knew him better I’d say he’s mad, but I haven’t seen Oliver’s mad side yet, so I’m not sure this is it.

“I think he would disagree.” I cringe at the thought of Kai hearing Oliver’s words of envy.

“Yeah, well no girl has ever permanently marked herself for me.”

Closing my eyes I shake my head. “It’s not for him, it’s because of him. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m sure he’d rather be in your shoes of not knowing than his.”

Oliver dumps the bucket of dirty water in the sink. “It’s no big deal. Some doors are better left unopened.”

O–kay.

This coming from the guy who has a mysterious locked, unopened, door upstairs. Secrets. That’s what we’re agreeing to without saying the actual words.

“Are we talking about my door or yours?”

He pauses with his back to me. “I need to take a shower before I go to my parents’ house for dinner. You want to grab some breakfast in the morning?”

I hop off the counter. “I’m leaving in the morning to stay with my parents in Hartford since Alex’s are coming to visit for the next week.”

He turns. “You’re leaving for a week? Don’t you have to work?”

“No, I’m leaving for two days, and no I don’t have to work. That’s the upside to Alex’s parents coming to visit. They think she works for Maggie so she actually has to when they’re here.” I flash a smile and a wink.

“So where will you stay for the rest of the time?”

“Kai’s.”

He folds his arms against his chest and widens his stance. “Kai’s? Doesn’t he have a girlfriend?”

“Yes, but she won’t be back for another week and they don’t live together anyway. She’s fine with me staying there. I do it all the time.”

“I see. Have the two of you ever been …”

I’m relieved he’s curious, maybe even jealous. “Yes, and no. We’ve been friends since kindergarten, but we were never more than that until our junior year in high school. But that only lasted a couple of years.”

“So you’ve been …” He looks at me with big questioning eyes.

“We’ve been … what?”

Oliver rolls his eyes. “Intimate.”

“You mean sex?” I laugh because the alternative hurts too much.