Excerpt: Burn the Ships (Ch. 8)
“The meet-cute is believable now.” Hastings peered at me over top of the pages in his lap. “The mechanics of the first kiss still need work, however.”
“Work how?” I grabbed my pen and note pad from the table in front of me and prepared to take notes.
He tilted his head back slightly. “You haven’t adequately factored the hero’s crutches into the equation for one thing.”
“Okay.” I jotted that down; looked back up. “And for another?”
“You’re going to have to make some concrete decisions on the extent to which the hero’s legs are affected by CP.”
I frowned. “Is that really necessary this early in the story?”
“Yes.” He quirked a smile at me. “It affects the mechanics of things like kisses.”
“Is that why my first kiss needs reworking?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” I tapped my pen against my note pad a couple of times, thinking. “Tell me.”
“It would be easier to show you.”
A few moments later, I stood across from Hastings wondering how my life had come to this. Kissing lessons from the High Horse Bastard. I forced myself to look up at him because, so help me, I was suddenly feeling too shy to do so. Get over it girl. “You’re tall.” I blurted having just noticed.
“I am.” His eyes glinted with humor. “Nice of you to notice.”
“Yeah. Okay, I’m an idiot.” I muttered as I felt my face heat. “Can we just get on with the kissing thing?”
He did laugh then. “You’re a demanding date I take it, Sinclair.” He leaned forward on his crutches and adjusted his stance. “Right, so one thing you need to understand is that I have had extensive surgery on my legs to improve the flexibility of the tendons, which has improved my balance and stability overall. I can stand and walk for short distances without the crutches, however, my balance is still a bit off.” Lifting the crutches, he took a step forward to demonstrate. We were now within kissing distance, and I could feel his body heat. “Without the crutches, I can reach out and draw you in close for a kiss.” Putting the crutches aside, he demonstrated and I found myself with my nose mere centimeters from his chest. Warmth flowed through me from where his hands pressed against my back. I was surprised at how nice it felt to stand there with him like that. Down girl. I told myself ruthlessly forcing myself to look up at him. This is strictly professional. “Okay. So what’s the problem.” I was impressed with how neutral I managed to sound despite the sudden pounding of my heart.
“The problem is that you’re short.” He said dryly. “And I could overbalance from having to lean down to kiss you without having the crutches to support me.”
I ignored the comment about my being short and focussed on the details of what he was telling me. Priorities. “But with the crutches, you can’t easily pull me in and everything is—”
“Awkward.” He finished with a smile as I imagined my way through a kiss with him as he leaned on his crutches.
I felt my way through it. “You’d be relying on your date to step into the kiss and take the lead in terms of physical contact because you’d be occupied with the crutches.”
“Yes.” He gave me an approving nod. “First kisses are particularly awkward.” Stepping back, he refitted the crutches to his arms before moving back into my personal space. “I can release the handgrips.” He demonstrated. “And the crutches will remain attached at the upper arm, but they get in the way.” He reached for me again and showed me what he meant. He had to make extra adjustments to his grip to avoid getting the crutches caught up on anything. “You’ll need to account for this in your descriptions.”
“Hmmmm…,” I said already mentally rethinking the first kiss scene.
“You also need to be aware that if I hadn’t had those surgeries, I wouldn’t necessarily have the balance or stability to walk without the crutches.”
“Ok.” I nodded. “That’s what you meant about deciding how affected the hero is by his CP?” I asked just to confirm.
“Yes.” Hastings reorganized his crutches. “The devil is in the details Sinclair. If you want to do a book with a realistic disabled hero, you’re going to have to include them.” He gave me a look. “Starting with the crutches.”
I thought back to the morning meeting where he’d given me ibuprofen; the way he tended to adjust his back and shoulders every so often. “Do they hurt?”
Something flashed in his eyes. “What?”
“The crutches, do they hurt?”
“The crutches are inanimate.” He did that peculiar head tilt back and gave me a dry look down along his nose. Deflecting?
I gave him a dry look of my own. “Do they hurt you?”
“Ah.” He smiled slightly. “If I’m up and about a lot, yes, they hurt.”
I hesitated slightly because what I was about to ask felt private—too intimate for our relationship—but the openness of his face, coupled with the fact that we were engaged in practicing the mechanics of kissing because he had asked me to ask got my mouth open. “In what way?”
“In what way?” Eyebrows raised in inquiry.
“In what way do they hurt?” I clarified taking in the ever so slight tension around his eyes
“My back and shoulders get stiff and sore.” He answered easily. “The armbands can chafe and my hands and wrists can get a bit tender.”
“And if it weren’t a first kiss?” I asked after I had finished tucking away that information for later.
He exhaled slowly through flattened lips. “If it weren’t a first kiss… and my partner were—” A slight pause. “Comfortable with…me…” He widened his stance a little, removed his crutches, and leaned them against the wall. Turning back to face me, he extended his arms in my direction and offered me his hands palms up.
I glanced from his hands to his face. There was a challenge in his eyes, which had me hesitating a moment before putting my hands on his.
“Put your hands around my waist.” He instructed as he tugged me towards him.
I felt a shiver of trepidation run along my spine as I put my hands on his waist and slid them round to the small of his back. I was strangely unprepared to feel the warmth of his body beneath my hands. I somehow hadn’t really considered that he would be warm or muscled. I resisted the urge to explore the thick muscles I felt under my hands. You cannot feel up a colleague. I warned myself, which felt slightly weird under the circumstances. After all, My traitorous brain reminded me. He won’t be a colleague for long.
He reached back along my arms and tugged my hands up until they rested against his mid-back along either side of his spine. This resulted in two things. The first being that I did, in fact, get the opportunity to explore the muscles delineating his spine, and the second being that I felt him sway slightly as he reached. As he released my hands and brought his own up to encircle my shoulders and rest on my upper back, he swayed again ever so slightly. Only this time, because we were front-to-front, the motion was absorbed into the places where our bodies met.
One hand came up to cup the back of my head while the other came to rest splayed between my shoulder blades and locking eyes on mine; he leaned down, bringing his face closer to mine. As he leaned down, he also leaned into me, and I got it then why this wasn’t first kiss material. There was an intimacy in that leaning—a silent seeking of support; of physical accommodation—that went well beyond the sexual. It was an act of trust—an openness about his body’s needs—inscribed with the certainty it would be well received and that a space would be provided for honoring those needs. That certainty that he would not be left to fall or hurt out of carelessness or selfishness spoke of the quality of a relationship in its entirety and not just in its sexual components.
By this time, our faces were mere centimeters apart, and his expression had a reserved quality to it even as he regarded me intently. He was waiting for my reaction, I realized. He had very little reason to trust me, but there he was, pressed against me making admissions, exposing pieces of himself, waiting to see what I would do in response. Why are you doing this? I wondered, staring into his suddenly mesmerizing brown eyes. Surely you’re not that invested in romance novels and their various failings?
I was trying to work out the appropriate reaction to this situation when something occurred to me. “You could dance like this.” I blurted, thinking back to our colleagues dancing at his birthday while we sat together at the table. Despite our rather hostile relationship, I had wondered why he’d made no move to ask me to dance at the time.
He laughed, apparently reading my thoughts. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t—“
His smile turned rueful, and he nodded down at our bodies. “It’s a big ask for a first kiss, never mind a first dance with a colleague.”
“Hmmm…,” I replied as I considered that. It was true that our position was incredibly intimate by first kiss standards, even without that silent request for accommodation of his legs. “I suppose it is.”
“There’s a lot of conversation and negotiation and experimentation that goes into things like this.” He told me quietly. “Nothing can be assumed.” I felt his exhale along the seam where our bodies met. “It’s work.” There was that word again, that darkness.
“Is it?” I asked, probing at that darkness. It doesn’t feel so very much like work. At least not this part.
“Isn’t it?” He replied with a careful neutrality. There’s that head tilt thing again.
“Okay,” I said slowly as I took it in. “So how does it work—this negotiation process?”
“You ask me questions.” He told me, and I noted that the neutrality was still there. “I answer them.” A slight pause. “I ask you questions. You answer them.” He looked away and let out a deep breath. “And we figure it out.”
“Okay.”
He glanced back at me. “You say okay a lot.”
I decided to overlook that for the defense mechanism it was. “You really don’t mind if I—?” I let that fall into the spaces between us.
“Ask questions?” He finished with a small crooked smile that had me wondering. “No, I don’t mind.” His eyes darkened slightly. “It’s easier if I can be open about it.”
I blinked in surprise. I would have thought that he wouldn’t welcome intrusive intimate questions. “Really?” Borrowing one of his expressions, I raised my eyebrows inquisitively at him. I refrained from attempting his head tilt; it is virtually impossible to look down your nose at someone taller than you.
Amusement flickered across his face—presumably at my imitation of him. “Yeah.” He grinned at me. “CP is part of who I am, Pippa. “It isn’t all that I am, but it affects me. It affects the way I do and experience things.” The grin faded. “Having people around me who are willing to acknowledge and make space for that, whether or not they completely understand it. It’s…” He hesitated.
“Less work?” I filled in thinking about the way he was leaning against me.
“Yeah, something like that.”
I thought of the characters in our project. “How often does it happen?”
“Happen?” Now he was the one doing the raised eyebrows.
“People asking questions and making space for your CP?” I squirmed internally with residual socially-conditioned embarrassment but forced it down with resolution. For the love of God, he has outright told you to ask Pippa.
“Rarely.” Very level.
“Your friends and family?” Too pushy, Pippa. Far too pushy.
“Some of them can, and some of them can’t.” Same polite, level tone.
“Surely—” My instinctive protest faltered in the face of his challenging stare. What do you know about it? “Okay,” I said instead.
“There’s that word again.”
I rolled my eyes. “Would you like me to switch it up with some profanity? Maybe a: ‘Fuck yeah.’?”
I felt his quiet laugh. “No. You’re prickly enough as it is.”
“Nice, Hastings. Really nice.” The vibration of his laughter was having an odd effect on me—akin to that of a cat purring, and I wondered idly if the reverberation of laughter had ever been studied for its relaxation properties. Does laughter occur at the same decibel as the purring of a cat? Does it have similar associated health benefits?
“Sinclair?”
“Ah—sorry.” I shook my head to clear away my wandering thoughts. “What about romantic partners?” I refocussed on the conversation. This was the core of any potential plot changes.
He smiled slightly as if amused. “Very rarely.” There was a slight tightness to that that didn’t match the easiness of his expression.
“Why not?”
“Well, you would have to ask them to be certain,” He regarded me down the length of his nose. “But I imagine that some of it centers around sex—perceived inability to have or perceived difficulty during.”
Ouch. “They see you as unable to have sex or as difficult to have sex with?” I clarified carefully. Following his lead, I kept my tone easy and matter-of-fact. I so did not want to disrupt the comfortable rhythm we had going.
“They’re not wrong—about the second one.” Pressed as we were together, I felt his heart pound briefly before it regained its regular rhythm. “I enjoy sex, and I’m a more than competent lover.” He said, and it was my heart’s turn to flutter. Down girl. This is your colleague. Currently, in any case. “I know my way around a woman’s body—how to pleasure a woman’s body.” How is it you’re able to be so open about this? I wondered as I fought the urge to flush. “I am considerate, and I am capable of making love to you any way you’d like.”
Me?
“But,” There was a slight change in tone—one I couldn’t quite decipher. “I often need…” A slight hesitation. “preparation—spontaneity is not always possible.”
I considered that. Considered those indecipherable brown eyes. “What do you mean by preparation?”
“I mean this.” He deepened his lean briefly. “And—” His tone changed, and he looked away. Something about this part is harder than the rest.
“And?” I prompted when he didn’t continue.
“And,” He looked back at me, and I was surprised to see the barest hint of reserve in his eyes. “I sometimes need time to get—comfortable prior to sexual activity.”
“How do you mean?” I asked carefully, aware that this was a sensitive spot. What could you possibly be getting at that would result in that edge of uncertainty in the context of this conversation?
“My legs and my back, during the day, they get…sore.” He told me. “Ideally, it is better if—” A brief hesitation as he hunted for the words. “I am relaxed… I mean, if I have time to relax before…sex”
I stared at him. Why the sudden stumbling and stammering here of all places? How is it that pain is more difficult to talk about than sex? “Seems pretty natural,” I said, then hastened to clarify, when he threw me a surprised look. “To not want to have sex when you’re in pain.” To not want to be in pain during sex?
“It’s a hell of a spanner to throw into the works Sinclair.”
“Why?” It was my turn to be surprised. “Everyone needs foreplay.”
“Foreplay?”
I wondered briefly if I had the wrong end of the conversation somehow. “Uh, preparation for sex?” I tried rephrasing it. “Making sure your partner is comfortable and receptive?”
“I wouldn’t classify it as foreplay.”
“Why not?” I frowned at him.
“It’s more…medical; physical than sexual.”
“But it is preparation…” The wheels were turning in my brain now as I seized upon a direction for our project. “Preparation for sex is by definition foreplay—or at least it could be…” I frowned as I considered the possibilities. “Your muscles get tight? Cramp up?”
“Yeah.”
“So meds, heat, and massage?” I guessed.
“Something like that.”
“That could totally be foreplay. A hot bath with a partner and a massage… good for relaxation but also good for building anticipation and desire; kind of like tantric sex.” I grinned up at him, suddenly excited. “And we now have a direction for our sex scenes!”
Hastings gave me an odd look. “Yeah, I guess we do.”
“Since this is a romance novel, we had better go with a heroine who makes an effort, don’t you think?”
“That would be the practical approach.” Dry.Very dry.
“So—is this the best position for kissing, or do you have better ones?
“You want me to show you my favorite kissing position?” There was a slight incredulity to that, which was unexpected.
“Kissing positions.” I clarified and earned myself a look. “For research purposes.” I reminded him. “We are going to need a variety for the novel, and I want to make certain I understand the negotiation process you mentioned.”
“Okay.” He said after a moment during which he considered me carefully. “The muscles in my legs are tight, which makes me somewhat unsteady on my feet. The tightness also causes spasms and cramps pretty regularly, which can cause me to fall. Hence, positions that eliminate stress on my legs are preferable.”
“Such as?” I prompted.
Straightening slightly, he dropped his hand from the back of my head then used it to reach behind him as he used his other hand to pull me back with him. Releasing me entirely for a moment, he levered himself up onto the table. Once he had positioned himself, he reached out and pulled me forward until I stood between his open legs. Once again, I found myself front-to-front with him, only this time, he wasn’t leaning on me for support, and his inner thighs rested along the outside of my hips. Curiously, I found that I missed the slight pressure of the lean. “You’re a lot more relaxed,” I observed as I took in the relative ease of his body against mine.
“I’m not worried about having muscle spasms and falling, or how you’re feeling about my leaning on you. He said simply.
“Yes, I suppose that would help.” I nod in agreement.
That earned me a laugh, which somehow made lifting my hands and resting them on his shoulders seem like the most natural thing in the world to do. “For the record, I don’t mind the leaning.”
“Is that so? He tilted his head back to peer down at me with amusement, and I had to catch my breath at the unexpected way the expression lit him up. You’re a handsome man Hadrian Hastings; when you smile like that.
“That is so.” Forcing the disturbing thought aside, I tilted my head and peered back up at him in return. “It’s kind of nice, actually.”
He closed his eyes in reaction to that. I saw him swallow once—hard. Then he reopened his eyes and smilingly nodded in the direction of the sofa. “Okay. Next position.” He gave me a small push, and I turned obediently and made my way over to the sofa. The sound of him sliding off the table told me he was close behind me while the pattern of the steps told me that he wasn’t using his canes. He put a hand on my shoulder to indicate his intentions as he brushed past me to seat himself on the sofa.
Standing there, I was close enough that my legs were touching his and reaching out he caught my hand and catching my gaze with his he guided me forward until it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to straddle his legs. Hastings caught my other hand. “Down Sinclair.” He instructed quietly as he pulled, and I found myself laying first one knee and then the other on the sofa along his outer thighs. I hesitated, and he caught it. “If you have something to ask, just ask,” Hastings said simply.
“Will it hurt you if I sit on your legs?”
“No. Not now.”
“But sometimes?”
“Sometimes.” He confirmed with a small smile.
Not quite believing him, I lowered myself carefully until I was seated on his thighs.
He grinned at my caution. “See. No problem.”
I found myself smiling back. As we smiled at one another, he released my hands and moved his own hands to my hips, and, once again, I found myself moving my hands to his shoulders. “If you’re not uncomfortable with the idea, you can move forward a bit.” He told me carefully.
I considered. Moving forward would put me directly into his lap, which was definitely pushing the boundaries of acceptable intimacy between colleagues. However, this was all in the name of research, was it not? And considering that you’ve already been pressed up against him in inappropriate-for-work ways, and nothing untoward has happened, you don’t precisely have cause for concern.
“I can’t promise that I won’t react.” He said, presumably sensing my reservations. “But I can promise that any reaction that happens is sheerly biological rather than intentional, and, as such, it will not be acted upon.” A wry, self-deprecating twist of his lips indicated that he saw the humor in the situation. Erections happen?
“Okay.” I stuffed the errant thought that I couldn’t promise the same to the back of my brain, and slid forward onto his lap. Whether it was the sensation of my female bits settling against the still soft bulges of his male bits, or the sensation of his hands taking a tighter grasp on my hips and lower back, in a manner reminiscent of the way a man holds on during sex; I found that I had to close my eyes briefly as a stab of arousal shot through me. This is research. I told myself grimly as I fought the instinctive desire to move against him. You cannot start this with him. You work together. You cannot risk fucking up this project. Get it out of your head and get on with things.
Pep talk done, I opened my eyes just as Hastings shifted beneath me. Although it was a minuscule shift, it served to communicate the changes in his body in an intimate fashion. My clit began to throb in heated reaction to the presence of his hardening cock that had, somehow, despite our layers of clothing, come to rest intimately between my folds. All you have to do is slide forward—just a little and then back just a little. Blood flooded to my nether regions in response to the thought, and I found myself hard-pressed not to groan at the sensation. He’s your colleague. You cannot do this. Just move back. Just get off his lap. That’s all you have to do. I braced my hands on his shoulders in preparation to push myself off his lap and took a deep breath which proved to be a mistake because my expanding diaphragm pushed me more fully against Hastings—a move, I realized, he felt too when I felt his cock swell and lengthen even further against me.
The rest of my body joined my clit in its throbbing awareness of just how good that cock felt, and I found myself getting wet at the thought of releasing it from the confines of his trousers, and after guiding it to my entrance, slowly sinking down onto it. He was thick and long, I could feel that, and would stretch and fill me in a way that would satisfy the throbbing ache between my legs. Get a grip Pippa. This is the kind of stupid shit that could cost you the farm. Literally. Cost. You. The. Farm. The thought was the equivalent of dousing myself with cold water that I needed, and I felt my arousal begin to recede. Hoping to force things along a little faster, I bit my lip, and let the resulting pain drew the final dregs of my attention away from my lap to my mouth. Like smashing yourself on the thumb with a hammer so you can ignore a migraine.
I heard Hastings let out a breath, and when I felt him soften beneath me realized that he must be smashing his own proverbial thumb. I opened my eyes and found him, face and neck still lightly flushed with arousal, regarding me steadily. “Biology.” He reminded me with a small shrug.
It was the perfect thing to say under the circumstances, so I shrugged in response. “Fuck yeah.” I agreed.
He laughed, settling more fully back against the sofa as he did so. “You look really comfortable,” I observed, noting the relaxed, almost boneless quality to his upper body. The contrast made me aware of the heretofore ever-present tightness in his body. You’ve been tense and uncomfortable pretty much the whole time I’ve known you haven’t you? It shed some light on the mystery of the painkillers he’d offered me so readily at work.
“I am,” Hastings said easily.
“I’ve never seen you this relaxed.”
“The sofa supports and cushions my legs and back.” He explained, almost languidly. That’s different. I cocked my head at him.
“What?” He asked.
“You’re different,” I said. “Your tone is different—less edgy…”
“Edgy?”
“Less—“ I waved a hand searching for the words. “impatient, less sharp, less angry.”
“Ah—” He looked away briefly, and when he looked back, his eyes were cautious. “Pain—can make me irritable.”
“Hmmm….. That makes sense.” That’s probably something you should have realized from your own experience or, you know, a little thought Pippa. “We should include that in the book. Shouldn’t we?”
“Hmmm.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“This?”
“Collaborating with me.” I clarified.
“You do remember asking me, right?” Dry.
“I mean,” I gave him a mock frown. “Why did you agree to do this? You didn’t have to.”
“Truth?”
“Truth.”
He sent me an enigmatic look. “Just once, I want to see a romance novel that portrays disability in all of its messy reality; no fade-to-black sex scenes or avoidance of sex altogether; no miraculous cures; no suicides, or pity, or skirting round issues. Just a boy meets girl, and they fall in love, and it’s real and complicated but romantic and sexy-as-hell kind of story.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s—” The set look on his face warned me that what I said next would have implications. “do-able.” The look he was giving me; all wariness and cautious hope was intense, so I grimaced and checked my watch. “Barely— if we get our asses in gear.”
People were staring, had been since I had met Hastings at the bar, and followed him across the dining room to our corner table. Some were doing it side-long, and others were doing it outright, but it didn’t dissipate until we had been seated, and Hastings had leaned his canes against the wall.
“You look nice.” He nodded at my red dress.
“You look tired.” I blurted and winced when I heard it come out of my mouth.
He laughed. “Nice social skills you’ve got there, Sinclair.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Too much time at the computer clearly.” I took in his charcoal grey suit. “You look nice too,” I told him and earned myself another laugh.
“I look exactly the way I always do.” He shrugged. “I didn’t have time to go home and change after work.”
“You always look nice,” I told him as I reached for my water glass. “You came here directly? Busy day?”
“You think I always look nice?” He tilted his head to the side; looked bemused.
“Yes. You always look nice.” I affirmed. “You don’t always act nice, but you always look nice.”
“Ouch.” He said softly.
“Serves you right for fishing.”
“A man’s gotta to do a little fishing every now and then Sinclair. Compliments are rare things.”
“Are you ready to order?” The waiter appeared, so I put a mental pin in the conversation while he took our order.
“Well?” Hastings raised his brows at me after the waiter had moved away. Amused, like he knew I was waiting.
I shrugged. “Maybe they wouldn’t be so rare if you weren’t so above it all. It’s hard to compliment a god. You never know if you’re overstepping—or if they need, or appreciate compliments at all.” I kept my tone light and teasing and was, therefore, a little horrified when the amusement faded from his face as he dropped his gaze to his water glass.
“A god?” He asked, glancing up at me, the expression in his brown eyes unreadable, and then just as quickly glancing back down. “Am I really that bad?”
“Well, perhaps not a god exactly.” Aware that I had misstepped, I tried to revive the convivial atmosphere of a few moments ago. “Maybe more like a really intimidating immortal—a time-lord or—”
His lips curved in appreciation of my attempt at humor. “Don’t say, zombie.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Definitely not a zombie.” I agreed. “You smell too good for a zombie.”
He looked up at that. “Have you been sniffing me, Sinclair?”
“No more than is usual.” I defended myself.
He snorted, and I found myself grinning back at him as I realized how weird that sounded.
“Am I really that bad?” He asked me after a moment.
“Bad?” I hesitated. It took me a moment to get what he was asking. “No—you’re pretty… er…remote from the rest of us mere mortals, though.” I tried to keep it light and joking, and he smiled briefly in appreciation, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Remote?”
“Insular?” I tried for a better word, and when he grimaced in reaction, decided to take a different track. “You don’t really engage with—I’ve never known you to go to lunch with any of us or to go to events, really.” I realized that that wasn’t entirely true and amended it. “I mean aside from the officially organized ones like the Christmas party and spring picnic…” I hesitated. “You’ re—you can also be a bit…uh… grim seeming.” I tendered cautiously.
He shifted back in his chair a bit. “Is that why you call me the “High Horse Bastard”?
“You know about that?”
“Yeah.” Looking up, he shot me a genuinely amused smile.
“Oh, god!” I dropped my face into my hands in horror. “You weren’t supposed to… how long have you known?”
He laughed. “Relax Sinclair. It’s not a big deal.”
I looked up at him through my hands. “How can you say that? It’s unprofessional and childish and—“
“Appropriate.” He cocked his head at me ruefully. Reaching out, he began to trace the rim of his water glass with his index finger. “I am not easy to work with, I know that.” He held my gaze. “I apologize.”
I felt my mouth drop open in shock. I didn’t know what I had expected him to say, but it wasn’t that. “I should be the one apologizing.”
“Let’s make a deal.” Putting his elbows on the table, he leaned forward. “I will promise to be less godlike if you promise to throw the occasional compliment my way.” He extended his hand, inviting me to shake.
“You’re kind of high-maintenance, aren’t you Hastings.” I teased as I put my hand in his.
“So, I’ve been told.” He squeezed my hand briefly before letting go. He stayed where he was as I straightened, which puzzled me until I saw him shift his shoulders from side to side in a minuscule, barely-there way.
“Is your back bothering you?”
He huffed in quiet laughter at my certainty. “A bit.”
“Why are you here, then?!” I asked in all exasperation. “You should have just canceled. We could have done this another time.”
He abandoned, trying to be subtle and leaned into his stretches in earnest. “We have a significant shortage of time in case you’ve forgotten. Besides,” He straightened. “It doesn’t really get any better than this.”
I eyed him. “What would you normally be doing now?”
“Lying down.” He nodded at the carpet. “Want to give it a go?” A joke with a hint of a challenge.
I put that aside for later. “So, why would you suggest this then?”
“Because it’s what people do?” A shrug. “Because you need the experience of what it’s like?” He opened a hand to indicate the room at large. “Because this is reality—people staring, and my back and legs doing their thing, and us both being nervous.”
“And you couldn’t have just, you know, explained it to me or something?”
“It wouldn’t be the same.”
Something occurred to me, and I lifted a hand to wave the waiter over. “Could you bring us some of the cushions off the sofa in the front, please?”
“Certainly, madam.” To his credit, the waiter didn’t so much as bat an eye at the request.
Turning back to Hastings, I found him frowning down his nose at me. “What are you doing?”
“It can’t hurt.” I frowned back, unable to believe that he had any reason to be irritated with me over this. “Frankly, I’m surprised that you didn’t think of it.”
“I am trying to make a good first impression.” He gritted from between clenched teeth.
“Why?”
“Because this is a first date—simulation, and that’s what people do.”
“Pain making your irritable?”
“Yes.” He ground out. He opened his mouth to say something more, then stopped when the waiter returned with the cushions. Mouth shut tight Hastings took them from the man and inserted them between his back and the chair while diners around us watched. After refilling our water glasses and asking if we required anything further, the waiter disappeared.
“The point is,” Hastings continued as he adjusted himself back against the cushions. “That if this were a real first date, we wouldn’t be having this interaction.” There was a slight relaxation in the muscles of his face as the cushions relieved some of the strain on his back.
“What would we be doing?” I asked curiously.
“You’d most likely be ignoring the elephant in the room, and I would be worried about horrifying you with any evidence of its existence.”
“Is that preferable?”
“Yes.” He paused. “No.” Another pause. “I don’t know.”
“That’s elucidating.”
He shrugged. An irritated, slightly hostile shrug that told me more clearly than words that, despite the cushions, he was struggling to focus on anything other than his back. Claustrophobic with pain. I had read the descriptor years before, and it struck me as apt now. For what is claustrophobia, but the inability to escape? I recalled reading somewhere that touch—a point of contact—could relieve pain or help ground someone during a panic attack, and, although I knew that he was not having a panic attack, it seemed to me that he could use a grounding point of contact, so I reached forward across the table and took his hands in mine. “Okay.” I used the word deliberately seeking to gain his attention and counted myself successful when he shot me a startled look. His hands remained stiff under mine. “Let’s work through this. This is our first date. Your back hurts. You’re uncomfortable and irritable and trying to hide it. Why?” I gave his hands an experimental squeeze and was surprised by the laser-like focus he turned on me in response to the action.
“I want you to see me.” A small ironic twist of the lips accompanied the statement. “I want you to give me a chance.” Another slight twist. “And once people see the CP, they generally don’t.”
“Huh.”
“Huh?”
“You told me that I had to look right at it.” I made it half a question.
“That’s different.”
“Different how?”
“You already see me.” A real smile this time. Ironic, but real. “Part of me, anyway. You think I’m arrogant and annoying and a pain in the ass to work with. I’m not just the ‘disabled guy at work’ to you.”
I winced. “I don’t—”
He cut me off with a soft huff of laughter. “You have a nickname for me that proves it, Sinclair.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You deserve that nickname.”
“I admitted it didn’t I?”
“Yeah.” I acknowledged. “So—you don’t want to be the CP guy.” I prompted in an attempt to get things back on track. The sooner we finish, the sooner he can go find a nice floor to lie on somewhere.
He glanced down at our hands. “It’s complicated.” He let out a breath. “If this were a first date and I liked you—were attracted to you. I would want you to like me—to see me as sexy and to be attracted to me. For that to happen, I’d need you to see me first.” He tilted his head to indicate the other diners. “Before you see me through their eyes—before you start making assumptions about my body that I can’t in all politeness address on a first date.” He looked up at me clear-eyed and solemn. “I’d need to show you that I’m worth the effort and that’s not going to happen if you know my back hurts, and I’m worried about having a leg spasm, or jumping at a loud noise and knocking the table over, or misjudging the mechanics of kissing you goodnight and making an ass of myself by falling on my face or knocking you over. So yeah, I’m trying to hide it.”
“Well, at least we already have the mechanics of kissing solved,” I said lightly as I took it all in.
“That’s one thing off the list.”
That earned me another soft huff of laughter.
“In all seriousness, how about getting the food boxed up to go, and calling it an evening?” I suggested. “I think I’ve got enough to make inroads into the scene if you’re willing to answer questions as they come up?”
That earned me a thoughtful look.
“Are you being kind to me, Sinclair?”
I held my thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart. “A little bit.”
He looked amused. “Has hell frozen over?”
“Probably.” I shrugged. “Best take advantage while you can Hastings. It may never happen again.”
“On one condition.”
“What?”
“A dance.” He nodded at the dance floor across the room.
It was one of the very last things I had expected him to say.
“Uh…your back?” I said eloquently.
“My back will be fine for a few minutes.” His eyes laughed at me. “I don’t want to be a complete bastard; dragging you here for a mere moment, and then departing so abruptly.”
I had thought that I had gotten the full effect of being stared at earlier in the evening, but it was nothing compared to the treatment we garnered as we made our way onto the dance floor. The way Hastings grinned at me as I turned to face him, told me that that was part of his purpose in proposing the dance, and I found myself hard-pressed not to swat at him in retaliation. “You’re awful,” I told him instead, and his grin widened in response as he slid his arms out of his canes and handed them over.
I was slightly surprised at how natural it felt to take them and lean them against a nearby wall before sliding my arms around his waist. As I positioned my hands on his mid-back and he wrapped his arms around my shoulders, I had the disconcerting feeling that we’d done this hundreds of times, so familiar did it feel.
That sensation of easy familiarity lasted until I felt him settle tentatively against me. I had thought myself prepared, but in the candlelit dining room with music playing in the background, I found myself firmly on the back-foot. What happened to all the professionalism? To the academic tone? I found myself wondering as I felt the warmth of his chest against mine. How did this not distract you before?
It must be something about the added motion of dancing. I concluded as we found our rhythm—a slow, easy box step that didn’t travel. It’s the feeling of him moving against me. We were stationary before. I tried to distract myself by focussing on the mechanics of the dance for possible inclusion into the novel, but that resulted only in my being further aware of the substantial muscles of his chest and abdomen as they shifted against my chest and abdomen. The extra weight, my hands on his back—This is what it would feel like to have him on top of me… I felt my hands flex compulsively on his back as the thought caused a heated clenching deep in my abdomen.
“Sinclair—” The movement of my hands must have triggered something in him because he shivered slightly.
“Hmm?” His muscles were tight with pain beneath my hands, and I rubbed at them absently in an attempt to get some blood flowing in to sweep the lactic acid out.
I felt more than heard him groan and stopped. “Am I hurting you?” I looked up to see his eyes closed.
“No.” A slight pause. “That feels good.” I felt his hand open and close on my back in a question. “Really good.”
Stepping slightly more into him, I ran one hand farther up his back to encourage him to lean more deeply into me. His eyes opened then, and holding my gaze, he dropped his head as he leaned until finally, his forehead rested against mine. “You don’t mind?” His breath was soft against my face.
“No.” I resumed my caresses on his back because it felt good to see him react. No more stone face. I thought, smiling as I watched his face slacken with pleasure.
He caught my smile. “You’re enjoying this.” He accused.
“I am.”
“Why?”
“It’s like seeing behind the mask,” I admitted, deliberately increasing the pressure of my hands as I did so.
His eyes drifted closed in response, and I smiled.
“You like to see behind the mask, huh?” He murmured against my cheek, and a bare second later, I felt him threading the fingers on one hand into my scalp while he pulled me closer against him with the other.
“Oh.” It was my turn to shiver and close my eyes as the sensation of those fingers along my scalp sent pleasure humming through my body. He pushed against me, and I felt him erect against my belly. My eyes shot open to find him regarding me seriously. “This is what’s behind the mask, Sinclair.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t really thought about that possibility, which was stupid given the nature of what we had been doing. “Not just biology?” I asked for clarification—just in case I had it wrong.
“No.” His fingers worked their magic in my scalp again. “Not just biology. Though,” He pushed himself against me a little. “Biology is involved here too.”
Heat flooded my body, and I found myself pressing back against him as the image of backing him onto a chair and climbing on top of him flooded through me. Wanting to see him react, I deliberately rolled my abdomen—caressing him through our clothing—and was immediately gratified when he sucked in a breath and forgot to move his feet. Without mercy, I nudged him back into motion taking every opportunity to rub against him as we danced. It’s the pirate thing to do.
“Is. That. A. Yes?” He rasped unevenly.
“That’s a yes,” I told him smugly. There’s something about having you struggling for control…
“Sinclair—” He lowered his head until his mouth was against my ear. “If you don’t stop, I am going to back you onto that table, push up your skirts, and have you right in the middle of that nice couple’s dinner.” He traced the inside of my ear with his tongue in what was clearly a retaliatory move, and I found suddenly that I wanted nothing more than to be had right in the middle of the nice couple’s dinner. I wanted it so badly that I could almost feel him moving inside of me hard and heavy with each thrust. Blood flooded to my nether regions, and an insistent throb between my legs prompted me to turn my head and seize his lower lip between my teeth. I pressed once gently with my teeth before letting go. “I’m game for that if you are.” I murmured as I nibbled lightly on his bottom lip.
He didn’t react until I used the tip of my tongue to caress the seam of his sealed lips, at which point, he opened his mouth on a soft gasp and returned my kiss with a gentle hunger that sent an answering shiver through me.
For several moments we were all lips and tongues and nips and caresses before he pulled away. “We have to stop.” He whispered, avoiding my lips as I instinctively tried to continue. He smiled a trifle darkly. “I don’t think we’d actually get away with the table scenario.”
“We won’t know unless we try,” I said hopefully as my body protested the absence of his lips against mine.
That earned me a soft huff of laughter. “You have an adventurous spirit, Sinclair.” A soft kiss to my nose as he pulled his forehead off of mine. “There’ll be other tables.” He promised wickedly.
“I’ll hold you to that,” I warned.
“I’m counting on it.” He raised an eyebrow and nodded back in the direction of our own abandoned table where our boxed up food now sat stacked neatly. “Shall we?”
“Ummm—perhaps we should wait a moment or two?” I suggested, conscious that he was still hard against me. “Give things a chance to calm down.”
Another soft huff of laughter. I am getting addicted to those laughs. “There won’t be any calming down with you here against me like this.” There was a growl to that that had my toes curling in my shoes.
“People will see…stare—” I began only to stop when his expression clouded.
“They’re already staring.” He told me.
I glanced around reflexively, saw heads turn rapidly as they caught me looking back at them.
“Well—yes, but…” I trailed off again as his expression tightened further.
“Does it bother you to be seen with me like this?” He asked curtly.
Unable to understand the abrupt change in tone, I tilted my head back and eyed him warily. “Like this?” I asked cautiously, trying to feel my way around.
“Kissing, being intimate. Me aroused,” He answered bluntly.
The pieces fell into place. “Are you asking me if I am embarrassed to be seen with you?”
“I am asking you if you are embarrassed to be seen engaging in intimate acts with me.” He clarified with a brutality that was impressive. Not sparing yourself, never mind me, anything are you, Hastings? “I’m asking you if you are embarrassed for these people to think that we are sexually involved with one another?”
With great strength, I stopped my jaw from de-hinging itself altogether and dropping to the floor. What the hell kind of question is that? I opened my mouth to ask, but the reserve in his gaze stopped me. He’s still leaning on me. I realized. Still open and trusting me not to hurt him. Vulnerable to my answer. Out of nowhere, the boldness I had been cultivating the past few days swept in and took over.
Holding his gaze, I silently slid my hands down along his spine until I encountered the dip of his lower back at which point I changed reversed my wrist position until the fingers pointed down and continued until I felt the firm muscles of his ass beneath my palms at which point I squeezed gently. “I’m not embarrassed,” I said into his startled face as I continued to knead and caress his ass as we slowly danced in our circle that didn’t travel, making certain that everyone in the dining room had a chance to take it in.
A few moments later, I deliberately chose to walk behind him as we returned to our table so that I could take in the blatant stares—some disgusted and disapproving, some hungry—directed at the massive erection tenting the front of Hastings’ trousers.
Outside the restaurant, Hastings led me to the edge of the sidewalk where he hailed us a taxi.
Surprisingly, a bare moment after he’d raised his hand, one appeared, as if from thin air.
“It’s the crutches.” He answered my unspoken question as he shifted said crutches into one hand, and pulled open the rear door of the taxi with the other.
Bemused, I ducked around the car door and gathered my skirt in preparation for the slightly awkward slide across to the far side of the seat that I would have to execute once I was in. I paused as it occurred to me that we hadn’t decided on a destination. “My place, or yours?” I asked so that I would have something to tell the driver.
Wry brown eyes gazed down at me over the top of the door. “You to your place; me to mine.”
“What?!” Startled, I lost my balance and grabbed awkwardly at the roof of the car to steady myself.
“I don’t just want to fuck you, Sinclair.” Hastings murmured as he stepped back from the taxi door.
“But—”
“Get in the taxi.” He said firmly. “This will wait.”
Not quite sure what was happening, I collapsed into the taxi. “Hastings—” I looked up at him, my mind blank with confusion.
“I will see you tomorrow Pippa.” He smiled a rueful half-smile and shut the taxi door on me. “At the sex shop.”
I stared at him through the glass of the window as the taxi pulled away from the restaurant and headed in the direction of home.