Love Out of Order (Indigo Love Spectrum) (21 page)

John came back with pad thai and prawns. I sat up on the bed and looked over to the table where he’d set the
containers.

“Looks good,” I said, sniffing the odor of the spices in
the air.

He grinned. “There’s enough for two, you know.”

I went over to the table and sat across from him. He handed me a paper plate and a bottle of water. I was hun
grier than I’d thought and for a while we ate in silence,
too hungry to talk. I sucked down noodle and prawn so
quickly that I almost didn’t notice how well spiced and
tasty the meal was.

Eventually I looked up and saw John toying with the
top to his water bottle, the corners of his mouth tilting
down in the beginnings of a frown. I lay my fork aside
and pushed my chair back from the table.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said, still spinning the top.

I stood and paced the floor just in front of the table.
“This is the dumbest thing in the world. Why are people like this? Why does it have to matter what color our skin
is?”

John finally looked up at me. “It doesn’t.”

“What are you talking about? Your parents. That asshole downstairs. You know it does. You should see your
face right now.”

H
e stood and wrapped his arms around me, stopping
me from pacing. “It doesn’t matter to the only people
whose opinions count. And all of those people are
standing in this room right now.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “Tell me you believe that. Because I have
to be with you. Please don’t let the inconsequential opin
ions of some close-minded people come between us.”

“I want to believe it,” I said, closing my eyes as he trailed feathery kisses down my cheek, my neck.

“Please. It’s only us. Only we matter.” He pulled my
sweater over my head and put his hands under the hem
of my T-shirt. His hands were warm against my skin,
almost hot. I lay my head against his shoulder and he slipped his hands into my jeans.

I turned my face up to his and pressed my lips to his.
I was only aware of his tongue against mine for a moment
and the next time I was aware of anything, I lay under
him on the bed in only my panties and he was shirtless. I
remember vaguely turning out the light at some point
before that. His kisses were deep and wet in the valley between my breasts. I pressed my fingers into his back as
his mouth closed over my nipple. His hand slipped inside
my panties and I reluctantly grabbed his wrist.

“No,” I moaned, motioning for him to move aside. I
sat up and pulled my knees to my chest.

“What? Why?” John sounded genuinely confused.
Maybe I was as well. Because part of me wanted to
pull him back on top of me.

“We’ve only been together a little over a month,” I lied. That wasn’t really what bothered me. I didn’t want t
o mess things up with sex. Sex always messed things up.
The furthest I’d let him go so far was heavy petting.

John lay back on his elbows. I could see his face in the
shadowy light from the street lights coming through the
curtains. His features were soft. He licked his lips and a
fresh wave of warmth flooded over me as I thought of better uses for that tongue.

“Well . . . I just—” I started, and finished in my head,
am afraid I’ll get even more emotionally wrapped up with
you. Scared I’m no good; I’ve only been with one other guy.

“What?” John interrupted my internal war. He
moved closer and started rubbing circles on my inner thigh with his finger.

“Uh, well, I think we should wait.”

He kissed the spot where his finger had been. “For
what?”

That was a good question. It was hard to think. I
throbbed with desire for him, and he must have felt the
dampness when he brushed his finger over my panties.

“You know how long I’ve been waiting for you,
Denise? I haven’t had sex since I met you.”

“But Sasha was—”

“I haven’t had sex with anyone since August.” He
emphasized his words with kisses. To my stomach, thigh,
hip. “You really don’t want to?”

“Not tonight.” It took all of my willpower to say that.

“Okay,” he said, kissing my side. He then kissed my shoulder before bringing his lips back to mine. Then he
rolled away from me and stood.

“Where you going?” I asked, disappointed.

“
I have to take a shower or I’m not going to be able
to leave you alone.”

“You don’t have to leave me alone. We can do other
stuff.”

“Denise, I’ve been thinking about making love to you
all day. I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to do anything
right now,” John said, walking toward the bathroom.

I lay back on the bed with a groan, wondering about
the wisdom of stopping him.

* * *

When we got back to Richmond on New Year’s Eve,
it was snowing. We went to the train station to pick up
my car and then he followed me home. We went straight
to my place. John said he didn’t even want to see his
roommates, which made me exceedingly happy.

We walked in and Tia and her boyfriend were sitting on the couch, making out. They didn’t bother to stop at
the sound of us coming in.

“Hi, Tia,” I said loudly. They reluctantly tore themselves away from each other and looked up at us.

Tia’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “I thought you
weren’t coming back until the day before classes start.”

“Yeah, well, we had a change of plans,” was all I was
willing to volunteer. “You have a good break so far?”

“Yeah. Terry’s been over here the whole time.” Tia
grinned at her boyfriend. I had to will myself not to roll
my eyes. “Did you, Denise? John?”

“
Yeah. It was great,” John said flatly. He brushed a
hand over his short, bristly black hair, knocking the snow
from it. I wondered what he’d done with his hat.

“Why are you back so early, though? I thought you
two had big New Year’s plans at your parents’, John,” Tia
said.

“Well, the party got canceled and my dad had an emergency work trip to take the day after New Year’s anyway, so
we thought we’d have more fun here,” John said.

I wasn’t sure it sounded convincing to me, but Tia
and Terry seemed to buy it. Not that they were probably
all that concerned with what we were doing. For one thing, they could barely keep their eyes off each other
even though Tia was attempting to carry on a conversa
tion with us.

“You two have plans for tonight?” I asked.

“Nope,” Tia said. Her small body was nearly swal
lowed up by Terry’s looming form.

“Well, do you want to go to dinner and make a trip by
the ABC? Then we could all just come back here,” I said.

“Is Astoria coming?” John and Tia asked together. I
laughed. Ms. Banks was notorious.

“I hadn’t planned on asking her if she wanted to. I
was just gonna call Suse and see what she and Charles are
doing,” I said.

“Okay, sounds like fun. Anywhere special you want
to go?” Tia said.

“Nah. You guys can pick. I’m gonna go call Suse,” I
said, taking out my phone and heading for my room.
John followed me.

“
Hey. Having fun in Connecticut?” Suse answered
the phone. We had gotten even closer since I didn’t like
spending a lot of time with Astoria anymore. Suse had
been cool with John and I ever since John had broken up
with Sasha. I guess the sneakiness really was what she had
disapproved of. Well, at least that was her story and she
was sticking to it.

“Actually, I’m back in Richmond.”

“Really? What happened? Where’s John?’

“He’s with me. Long story,” I said, and quickly got to
the point before she could ask more questions. “You and
Charles have plans tonight?”

“No, not really.” Suse sounded confused. Yeah, I
didn’t blame her. “Charles and I were just going to head out to Louisa.”

“Well, I was wondering if you’d want to come over.
It’d be me, John, you, Charles, Tia, and Terry. We could
have dinner and hang out here after that.”

“Okay,” Suse said. “Let me run it by Charles, but I’d
say count me in.”

“How about you come over around . . . seven-thirty?”
“Sounds good. I’ll see you then.”

“Bye,” I said, hanging up the phone and turning to
John. “You want to go to the ABC?”

“Maybe in a little while,” he said, putting his arms around me. A devious grin lit up his face.

“We might miss it,” I said, not making any attempt to stop him from pushing me back onto my bed.

“Well, if we do, we do. I can find alcohol like it’s my job,” he said before kissing me. I laughed. I didn’t doubt it.

W
e lay in my bed talking, kissing and touching for
hours. I was seriously thinking about doing more when my
eye caught the time on the alarm clock on my nightstand.

I began to untangle myself from John.

“No,” he murmured, pulling me closer.

“Yes,” I sighed. I rolled away from him. “It’s time to
get ready. I must have a shower before we go.”

“We have to get up?” John asked, sounding disap
pointed. He moved next to me.

“Yes,” I laughed, his tongue tickling my ear. “It’s
already close to seven.”

John reached over me to turn on the lamp, and I
stopped him. “What?”

“I don’t want you to see . . .” I felt awkward for the first time since we’d climbed into my bed.

“Okay. What’s this thing you have about me seeing you naked?”

“It’s just you’ve been with girls like Sasha and . . .”

“So? I know I’ll love your body. If you just let me
see
it,” he said in that tone I hated because I couldn’t say no
when he used it, or when he kissed the back of my neck
like that. I took my hand off of his arm. He turned on
the lamp. At first, I was afraid to look at him. Until he
turned me to face him. I looked into his eyes and I didn’t
see disgust. I didn’t see laughter. I saw desire. So much
desire I thought about giving him what he’d been trying
to get since the night before.

“We really do have to start getting ready to get out of
here,” I said, but I made no attempt to move from the
bed.

“
I wish I hadn’t turned on that light. ’Cause now that
is
all
I’m gonna think about all night. As if it wasn’t hard
enough already to behave.”

“You call what you’ve been doing behaving?” I teased.

“Oh, yeah. This is the best I can do. You’d have
thrown me out by now if I wasn’t trying,” John said,
reaching for me.

I shook my head, laughing as I stood. I grabbed my
robe and turned to look at him one last time before
heading to the bathroom. Wow. He was really in my bed.

By the time John and I finally showered, got dressed,
and made it out of my room, it was a little past seven-thirty. I was surprised when the front door opened and
Tia came in, followed by Terry carrying a huge cardboard
box. I had assumed they were in her room.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“We went by the ABC. I figured it would be too late by the time we got back from dinner,” Tia said as Terry sat the box down on our dining room table.

“I was thinking the same thing, but we obviously
never made it.”

“Yeah . . . it didn’t seem like you were leaving your
room any time soon,” Tia said. She and Terry laughed.
All of the blood in my body seemed to rush to my face.