Louder Than Love (28 page)

Star-tipped whispers

refrigerated doubts

a man of many colors

answers number zero.

Although the band had respectfully shifted to allow him to come front and center, Adrian chose to hang back. My eyes delighted in taking him in from head to toe. The lights wove crazy patterns over his shaggy hair and bounced blindingly off the tiny silver trails of the pickups as he moved. His stance was one of accomplished nonchalance as he leaned slightly back, his gaze shifting only from the frets to the other musicians as his fingers nimbly up-stroked and pulled off from impossibly high frets to create the most spine-tingling arpeggios.

Untame the obvious

despondent fear of shadows

recalling the morose

at the hands of the syndrome dreamer.

Jim grinned as his arms swung like a demented octopus, making contact with every skin and cymbal as the song’s crescendo thundered to the rafters.

“Mr. Digger Graves, ladies and gentleman!”

Adrian didn’t stick around to witness the response of the singer’s pronouncement; I watched as the neck of the guitar swung back with his sudden movement and he pivoted on the heel of his motorcycle boot. He was shrugging off the guitar strap and handing the axe back to the guitar tech with a nod as the band played the last dwindling notes of his song. The crowd’s cacophony tunneled behind us down the cement ramp and out a back exit door near the loading dock. We were practically to Eighth Avenue before he released his grip around my waist and spoke.

“You don’t see that every night, now do you?”

“Adrian,” I began as he pulled me close to fumble into the pockets of his leather to find his cigarettes, “that was incredible! Do you realize what—”

“What being outed onstage after fifteen years of silence means? Pretty sure it means fuck-all.” He exhaled smoke toward the summer sky, then fixed his gaze pointedly on me.

“I was going to say what that meant to your friend Jim, to play with one of his heroes. And what it meant to me, to finally see you
really
play . . . a song you created,” I blurted.

He stomped on the barely smoked cigarette and proceeded over the zebra-crossing without a sideways or a backward glance. I stood defiant, allowing my words to plow after him rather than my feet.

“We believe in you. But if you can’t even give yourself that courtesy, then yes—it means fuck-all!”

A taxi’s horn provided an exclamation point, punctuating my outburst. It whizzed narrowly by Adrian as he strode back across the avenue. The rise of his chest and his sigh was a complete surrender. I pulled him off the sewer grate and into my arms, and his lips fell on mine with a hard crush.

“You’ve got all this. . . this love—no, it’s louder than love. It’s passion and beauty built up inside you that deserves to burst out,” I whispered against his mouth as we came up for air.

“Where’s your car?”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“For now . . . yes.”

Blossoming

Waking up in Manhattan was both comforting and surreal. Opening my eyes to find Adrian lying next to me on the bed in peaceful slumber was almost dreamlike, especially after the intensity of the evening’s events.

We had scrambled up to his apartment and had barely made it through the door fully clothed, not bothering to flick a light switch. I was still quivering with the memory: my silky lingerie lay forgotten in my bag as he stripped me down bare and spread me across the Persian rug. His tongue urged me toward a screaming finish, but I denied myself, instead pulling him roughly toward me, yanking off the rest of his clothes. Adrian deftly flipped me over and I bent invitingly, yielding to him by the expanse of his living room windows. His hands cupped my breasts, protecting them from the cold glaze of the glass as he slid into me from behind, a foot propped on the low sill for leverage. We both came rapidly, suspended above the rustling treetops in the deep violet sky, Adrian’s breath over my shoulder fogging the scenery and my mind. It had been easy to fall back against him, mewing and crawling into his naked lap, kissing every inch I could find in the dark.

Now the dawn sifted in through a gap in the curtain, motes of dust sparkling in a lone spotlight leading to the newest tattoo on my lover’s body. So there it was. On his side with his arm thrown over his head in slumber, Adrian provided me a luxurious full view of a beautiful flowering desert cactus that ran from his hipbone to his armpit. The stem was various shades of green and rose up to mid-rib, with spiny clusters—some curving, some straight, projecting out in every direction; some black fading into gray, others yellow into white. Smaller ribs of the plant undulated from the body, and it was then I noticed a slim smooth snake, brown and gray, coiling carefully between the spikes on its mission upward. Its reward was apparent: A lush funnel-shaped bloom fanned up toward his armpit, the colors flaming orange bleeding into dark red. The lower buds harbored a few remaining spikes near its base before changing to smooth and waxy petals. The detail inside was incredible, complete with a thick nectar chamber and dozens of thready pink stamens at the center.

Adrian had once likened me to a desert flower, soon after my Memorial Day purge and clam-up. “You bristle to keep people at bay,” he had commented. “But your blooms keep them coming back.” I hadn’t taken offense; I knew the quality had mutated in me during those dry and barren years after Pete. Perhaps Adrian saw himself as the snake, an unlikely suitor stereotypically unequipped to bring solace but determined to do so. Who was more likely to injure the other? I didn’t want to currently contemplate it, not on our first real morning together.

Like a film in reverse mode, I slipped naked out of bed and into one of my new negligees. Marissa and Leanna had tried to sway me away from my choice, saying it was too bordello red with too much black lace, but I had insisted. The bathroom mirror agreed with my choice; I smiled at the way the bottom hem graced my legs, how tiny my waist looked as the red silk ruched up tastefully over my chest, and how the black lace straps flattered as they widened over my ivory shoulders. I brushed my teeth and completed my loop back into bed.

“Oh my . . . my, my, my,” Adrian murmured; he was just stretching and blinking as I eased back down next to him. “Let me drink you in . . . wow.”

I straddled his sheet-swathed midsection and let him admire the view. “I match your flower,” I whispered, leaning to kiss the complex corolla of the fresh tattoo.

“You
are
my flower,” he whispered back, fingers moving along the lacey hem as if to memorize where it met my flesh. “My
Echinocereus triglochidiatus
. Yes, big word . . . I know. Trying to impress you.”

I pressed my chest to his bare one, allowing my hands to run over his smooth, strong shoulders. “Oh yeah? Tell me more.”

“The desert flower takes five to ten years after sowing to bloom.” He ran his fingers around the lacy straps and down the neckline. “Then the flower only opens for a few days at a time.”

“Sounds like beauty worth waiting for,” I breathed, kissing his cheek and sliding toward his ear. “Like you and me.” I felt him squirm under me. I knew the combination of my whisper and just the slightest pressure of my lips and tongue was delicious torture to that particular erogenous zone.

“Kat,” he groaned. “Come ’ere, love.” He pulled my face gently to his. “I was an utter prat last night. You must think me some fool drama queen. I’m sorry.”

“Shhh, no.” My lips found his neck, and the silky barrier between us aided me as I shimmied slowly lower, my mouth never breaking contact with his skin. When I licked the spot where the misericorde ended and his scars began, I heard a sharp intake of breath, felt his frame stiffen. For once he didn’t attempt to stop me as I dipped my head farther. I felt his fingers through my hair, lifting it off my face from where it was blocking his view. He wanted to watch me. I flicked my eyes up for a moment and saw his flutter in conflicted rapture.

Somewhere deep within the house, his landline phone began to ring. I didn’t slow my pace or break my rhythm, and he uttered a strangled groan of approval. I felt his toes curl under the sheets. “Kat, baby . . . you’re amazing . . . please, not yet . . .” I acquiesced, rising only to lower myself upon him. Silk and lace pooled across his tight tattooed torso. “We’re not using anything . . . are we okay?”

“It’s a safe time.” My words were lost to his mouth as he leaned up to press it tightly to mine. Our slow movements kept him so close and deep, all we could do was stare at each other in wonder. The landline began to ring again. “Maybe you should—” He thrust my breath wordlessly out of me, and I began to shake as my climax rained down from deep within.

I could tell Adrian was ready; he had been holding off and waiting for me. His cell phone began to peal on the nightstand as I felt him buck under me, rear up as I rode him harder toward the edge, and then I felt his release.

“Robyn!”

Battle Call

My ear was pressed against his neck, but I clearly heard him utter his ex-wife’s name. My mouth froze midkiss against his shoulder, and I felt him steadily shrink within me.

It took me a moment to realize he was acknowledging her call and not, as I had ridiculously assumed, calling out her name in the throes of passion. I awkwardly attempted to disengage myself from him and not eavesdrop as the verbal sparring began.

“No, I wasn’t screening my calls . . . because last I checked, New York is five fecking hours behind London. You do the math,” he snapped. “All right, you have my attention now, so what—
What?
When?” Whatever Robyn was relaying, Adrian’s face took it in and boomeranged it back out with a hurt grimace. “Can you not play the blame game, just tell me what the doctors . . . Can they stop it without surgery? Do they know . . . Robyn . . . Okay. Well, what is the success rate of that? When will they start?” He was up and rummaging through his bureau, raking a pair of boxers up his slim frame with one hand. “I’m not going to wait here while . . . Honestly, I could give a fuck what
Leopold
recommends . . . Yes, well,
I
prefer to call him that, thank you . . . I don’t know, I’ll ring you when it’s sorted.”

I stared at the compass rose that spanned my lover’s back, watched as his shoulders shook slightly. “Adrian . . .”

“It’s Natalie.” He paced toward his laptop, wrenching it open and firing it up. “She had an accident. Horseback riding. Robyn waits half a bloody day to tell me, and then has the nerve to tell me
not
to come? That it’s my fault for buying her a horse in the first place?” His laugh came out as a bitter bark. “I may be five hours behind, but who’s the one living in the past?” He paced back to the dresser drawers and began plucking items out. “That notion is so ridiculous, I’d laugh . . . if it wasn’t so damn dire. The swelling is putting pressure on her brain. They’ve medically induced a coma, pending surgery.”

I scrambled off the bed. “You pack. I’ll find a flight.” My hands shook across the keyboard, and I willed my mind to stay on task. “Here’s one, nonstop from Newark. It leaves at 6:25 p.m. and gets into Heathrow at 6:40 a.m.”

“Nothing earlier? Gatwick?” He leaned over my shoulder.

“No, nothing nonstop. We’ve missed the morning flights.”

“Book it.” He tossed a credit card onto the desk and fled from the room.

I stood bent over the laptop, mouse arrow hovering near the “ticket quantity” dropdown box. The result of our unprotected union trickled slowly down my thigh. “One . . . ?”

“Yes, one way.” He was back, leather shaving case in hand. “Robyn and Leopold will no doubt loathe my indefinite existence, but I don’t give a flying monkey’s.”

“Abbey and I have passports. If you need . . . We could . . .”

“Not necessary.” He began to fatten up his rucksack with shirts and sock rolls. “It will be enough of a mad scene without having to explain you.”

I knew Natalie was the focus, but his words stung. I continued booking his flight, biting my lip in feigned concentration.

“Come on, love. You know I don’t talk to them much, they’re so wrapped up in themselves.” He sidled up to me, kissing my shoulder as I clicked through the confirmation process. “I need to get some cash, dollars and pounds. And I’ve got nothing here to speak of in the way of food. My bank is on Fifth; we can stop there and then go to the Naked Bagel. Ah wait, but Liz . . .”

“She’s never there on weekends.”

“Still on the outs?”

“Yeah. I miss her. And her damn bagels.”

Adrian’s master bathroom shower put the facilities I had regrettably passed up at the Plaza Hotel to shame. Not only did he have a luxury showerhead about as big as a Seattle rain cloud, but there were several other sprayers at various angles and pressures as well that worked to invigorate and calm. I wished we could’ve stayed in there until we drained the borough dry, but Adrian’s boarding time was creeping closer.

On our way through the lobby, we passed by the dentist whose office was on the ground floor of the building. His face was a familiar one, and pleasantries were often exchanged when we passed in the hall. But today he was eying Adrian with wary respect. “That was you, wasn’t it? At the Hammerstein last night?” He didn’t wait for acknowledgment before stammering excitedly, “I had no clue . . . you! And you
live
here?” He shook his head. “How cool is that? Wow!”

Adrian gave a smile and a nod as he took my arm and didn’t break his stride on his way out the door.

“Metalhead dentist . . . Maybe he has a musician discount?” I laughed as Adrian gave my comment a dismissive yet modest roll of the eyes.

We swept into the cold confines of the bank right before its noon closing time. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Adrian muttered, his hand shaking as he penned his withdrawal request. “Do you hear that?” The piped-in Muzak filtering down was unmistakably a light instrumental version of “Simone.” “Goddamn Wren . . .”

“Try to ignore it,” I said, pulling him through the velvet ropes to the waiting teller. The Muzak droned on ridiculously, Adrian’s blistering guitar solo replaced by the pan flute.

“Yes, can’t you see I’m laughing . . . all the way to the bank? Ho ho ho,” Adrian remarked sardonically, pocketing the many pounds sterling, dollar bills, and traveler’s cheques.

***

“Call me when you arrive? No matter what time?” I had escorted Adrian as far as security would let me.

“And I will call you every day after that. Promise. Kiss Abbey for me?” I nodded my head close to his, allowing the peppery comfort of him to sink into my skin. “Sorry I’m going to miss your parents’ visit.”

Tears were brimming, but I laughed. “No you’re not.” I had forewarned him the moment my parents had announced their plans to stop en route to Kevin’s annual Independence Day cook-off.

“Okay, admittedly I was terrified.” He pressed his lips into a tiny smile. “But still.”

“But still.” I squeezed his fingers in mine. “Love you . . . God, I love you. Hoping for the best for Natalie.”

“That means . . . that means the world to me. Thank you. I want her to meet you. And Abbey . . . my world.”

I felt his kiss long after it broke; I needed to.

There’s something heartbreakingly intimate about watching your lover carefully remove his shoes and offer them up to strangers for inspection, along with his cache of toiletries. His eyes caught mine right before he crossed the last security checkpoint; his lips formed clear, legible words of love, and then he moved swiftly through to the other side.