Haven
Shit, did I piss him off? I couldn’t tell sometimes. I thought we were having fun with the anal joke. I had difficulty navigating boundaries with new people. Somewhere Harry, or Jake, or whoever he was, had stopped being a new person in my head. I’d forgotten myself. I certainly wasn’t asking to get kissed. Well, that wasn’t quite true, but I didn’t want it to happen because I’d offended him. And ex-girlfriend? That was new information.
“Sorry—”
The crowd started mumbling. I pulled my eyes from Jake and focused on the crew. People were breaking for lunch. That meant my time to speak to Sandy was up. Phil came over and I hopped off my chair.
“Haven, sweetie, I think Sandy might be coming down with something. She’s not going to be able to do lunch. Mucho apologies.”
“He knows that was Italian not French right?” Jake said as Phil disappeared.
“Do you think she’s really sick?” I asked.
Jake shrugged. “Let’s go and get some lunch.”
When we came back to set an hour later, there were a few people milling about, but it was very quiet. “I wonder what’s going on,” I said to Jake. “Something seems off.”
“Let me go investigate.”
He strode toward one of the people I’d seen operating the camera. They chatted as if they were old friends. I watched as Jake charmed the pants off him. God, he was dangerous. My heart quickened as I thought about our kiss and how easily I’d given in to him, like he had some unseen power over me. It was frightening. I liked to be in control, to be able to predict what was going to happen next. My pants needed to stay firmly on. As he made his way back to me, Jake stopped and chatted to a number of other people, laughing and making them laugh. It seemed he was old friends with all of them.
“Sandy and the director are fighting apparently,” Jake said as he returned.
Phil came over to us, more red faced than usual. “I’m sorry guys. I don’t think there will be anything else happening today. I suggest you go and enjoy Paris.”
“Really?” I said. “What’s happened? Is Sandy upset? I thought she was having a hard time this morning.”
Phil pursed his lips. “I can’t say anything. There’s been a few creative differences.” He threw his hands up in the air. “I’ve said too much already. Please assure me I’m not on the record.”
I shook my head. “Your secret is safe with me.”
When Phil left, I turned to Jake. “Poor guy. Who’d have his job?”
“I think it sounds like fantastic news. Let’s do what he says and go and enjoy Paris.” Jake grinned.
“I can’t, this is a working day. I should go back to the hotel and catch up with some of the work I’m missing.”
“Over my dead body. You’re in this amazing city, Haven. Let your hair down. Literally and figuratively.”
I grinned at him. What was his obsession with my hair?
“I can’t. I have a million emails to send,” I said.
“No one will ever know. They think you’re on set. For me?” he asked.
I started to chew the inside of my cheek. I wanted to go with him but I really should be working.
“I’m going to take you to my favorite place in Paris,” he said, and I knew I had to go with him.
“So basically, you could have brought us anywhere in Paris, and you chose The Gates of Hell?” I asked, glancing up at him. We had arrived at the Rodin Museum and we were staring up at one of his most famous works.
Jake threw his head back and belly laughed. “I suppose.”
I followed the sinewy bodies up and down, trying to make sense of the shapes as they merged into each other. “Is it a metaphor?” I asked.
“The door?” he asked.
“No, our trip here.”
“A metaphor for what?”
“For what’s next,” I replied. Were we at the start of something between us? Did he think it was going to be difficult? Was this a warning?
“I hope not,” he said and he clasped and released the top of my arm, making my skin tingle underneath my layers.
I tried to concentrate on Rodin’s door. I’d seen stuff of his before but this was so . . . disturbing.
We made our way through the museum. “See, this is beautiful,” I said, pointing to a small plaster sculpture of a couple kissing. “Eternal Springtime,” I read from the plaque.
“It’s not so different to the Gates,” Jake said.
I watched him. How could he think they were at all similar? Love and hell were the same thing? Was that what he was saying?
“See, the desperation is the same. The frustration. It’s in these figures as much as the ones trying to escape hell.”
“How depressing,” I replied.
“I don’t think it’s depressing at all.” He smiled at me and his eyes did that crinkly thing at the corner and my stomach tilted. I felt as if we were on dangerous territory.
“Okay, what about this one, Mr. Art Critic?” I pointed to a small bronze of a man whose arms and legs were everywhere.
“Yeah, that’s just a guy getting hammered. There’s no meaning there.”
I laughed. “Bacchus in the Vat,” I read from the sign. “You’re right.”
“I’m always right.”
I rolled my eyes and followed him across the room.
“This is my favorite,” he said as he stilled in front of “The Kiss.”
Of course, it was just a representation, but it was such an intimate sculpture. “It’s like we’re peeping Toms,” I said.
He nodded. “It’s intense.”
“And beautiful,” I said as I stared up at the tangle of limbs.
“You can tell he thinks she’s totally worth it,” he said softly.
“I think he’s cast a spell on her. She looks . . .” I couldn’t finish what I was saying. I was aware of Jake’s eyes on me and I daren’t meet them or I might be cast under the same spell as the woman in front of me.
After the Rodin Museum we wandered across to Ile de la Cité.
“Tell me about Luke,” Jake said as he gestured for me to sit at a table outside one of the cafes. He looked at me as he ordered some wine from our waiter. He didn’t even try to speak French.
“What do you want to know?” I asked as the waiter scurried away.
“Anything. Pick something.” Jake moved his chair closer to mine and his thighs brushed my knees.
Where was he going with this? “He’s a lawyer, although I think he’d prefer to have done something creative. He’d never tell me that, but I think he probably regrets that he didn’t do something else. When he was younger, he wanted to be a chef.”
“What else?” He looked at me as if he could pull out all my secrets with a blink of his eyes.
I unwrapped my scarf from my neck and opened the top buttons of my coat. “We’re close. We always were and then after our parents—and Ash has been in love with him for the longest time.”
He grinned. “Ash is in love with your brother?”
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s just, until about a minute ago, I thought Luke might be your boyfriend.”
“Ewww, that’s gross.”
“I thought so too. Any other men in your life I need to know about?”
My heart jumped in my chest. What was he asking me? “Jake.”
He reached across and cupped my neck, pushing his fingers into the bottom of my bun. “Take your hair down, Haven.”
I paused, not knowing how to respond. My fingers fumbled over his as I pulled out a pin, and then another. There were five altogether. After the third my hair started to sag. I took a deep breath and took out the final two.
“I like it like this,” he whispered and leaned into me and placed a small kiss on my neck.
I closed my eyes. “What are you doing?”
“What you’ve been thinking about me doing all day,” he replied as he lowered his lips to my neck again.
My skin heated as if I were being branded by him. What was happening? I didn’t fall for men like him, but every part of my mind and body was being pulled toward him. I turned slightly as he shifted his head so our foreheads met.
Here we were, at the gate to somewhere. I just hoped it wasn’t hell.
“I want to go back to the hotel with you,” he whispered.
I started to chew the inside of my cheek. I wanted to go back to the hotel with him too.
I reached up and quickly pecked him on the lips and pulled away, creating a newly formed gap between our bodies.
“Jake, stop,” I said. I needed space before I lost all control.
He raised his eyebrows. “I bet you are so sweet on my tongue.”
“I’m serious,” I whispered. “I can’t go back to the hotel with you. We’re colleagues and you’re . . . ”
Jake
I put my fingers to her lips. I wanted her to stop giving herself an explanation as to why she wasn’t going to sleep with me. I’d have her in Paris and she knew it. We were being drawn to each other.
“Let’s go,” I said, indicating to our waiter that I wanted our bill.
“I’ll get this,” Haven said, reaching for the ticket.
“No you won’t. Don’t try and argue with me.”
We flagged down a cab back to the hotel.
“I can’t sleep with you Jake,” she said. Her eyes were on her lap as she twisted her hands. She wasn’t very convincing.
“Maybe not today,” I replied.
Although we didn’t speak, the silence between us wasn’t heavy, it was just the buzz of something to come and I was impatient.
We took the elevator to our rooms.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.
“We should eat, we’ve not had dinner,” I said.
“I’m tired. I want to get into my pajamas and lie brainless in front of the television. I think I’ll order room service.”
“Great idea. Give me ten minutes, you can change, I can shower, and I’ll be back and we can have room service.” I grinned. If we weren’t going to sleep together, then just being with her was the next best thing.
She rolled her eyes. “Room service isn’t a euphemism you know,” she said.
I laughed. “I know. If you try and jump me, I’ll be offended.”
She shook her head. “Okay. Don’t be long because I’m hungry.”
I unlocked the door to my room. I dumped my bags and went into the bathroom to splash my face with cold water.
Shit. I liked her. Shit. I really liked her.
I kicked off my shoes and grabbed my phone, finding my sister’s number in my recently dialed history.
“How’s Paris? Been to see Rodin’s naked bodies yet?” she asked.
“Am I so predictable? But yeah, this afternoon.”
“Did you take Haven?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I think you like her. I think you’d want her to see your favorite place in Paris.”
I smiled into the phone. “I think I like her too.”
“Does she like you?”
“I think she’s holding herself back, stopping herself. I need to find out why. You people with the vaginas are so complicated.”
“Don’t blame it on the vaginas, brother, or I’m going to start to talk to you about penises, then you’re going to heave and it’s all going to go very badly.”
“Point taken.”
“Listen, if I know you at all, I know you always get exactly what you set out for. If you want her bad enough, you’ll make it happen.”
She was right. I needed to encourage Haven to let go and take a risk with me.
Haven opened her door with a hairbrush in her hand. I took in her hair spread across her shoulders, semi covering a lace camisole. Jesus, her tits were amazing. How had I not noticed them before? She’d taken off her make-up and she seemed more beautiful, if that was possible.
My gaze travelled down her body. She was wearing pajamas similar to the ones she had on when I bumped into her in the street. They clung tight like leggings across her body.
Room service might have been a mistake. I wasn’t sure I would be in control of what I was doing if I stepped across the threshold.
“Haven.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. She released the door and headed back into her bedroom. It was as much of an invitation as I was going to get. I took it, and strode in after her. I followed her across the room. As she realized I was heading toward her she spun around to face me and backed away. I kept walking and she moved back until she couldn’t go any farther. My body was just inches from hers.
“Give me the hairbrush,” I said.
“What? Why? I’m not going to hit you with it,” she replied.
“Hairbrush,” I repeated, in a low, controlled tone.
She reluctantly gave it to me. I took her hand and led her back over to the bed. I took a seat and pulled her between my knees. “Turn round.”
“You’re not going to hit me with it either, right?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“Jesus Haven, I’m going to brush your hair. Why do you think I might hit you with the hairbrush?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re into. I’ve read Fifty Shades of Grey.”
“What, and he hits her with a hairbrush?”
She laughed. “No, but . . .”
She turned around and I started to brush her hair. “I’m not going to hit you—I would never do that. When we sleep together, I’ll be in charge, make no mistake, but I’m never going to hit you.”
“When we sleep together?”
“Yes, when. It won’t be tonight, but it will happen, Haven.”
She turned back around to face me. “I’m not a possession to have and then throw away, Jake,” she said.
“I know.” I cupped her face in my hand.
“And I’m not going to have sex with you.”
“Soon,” I said. I was even surer of that now. Every moment I spent with her, my feelings for her grew. I wanted to spend time with her, share things with her.
“No, Jake.”
“Shhhh.” I turned her back around and set to work freeing the knots from her hair.
“How long have you and Ash known each other?”
“Since we were two. Our mothers were best friends. I know what she’s thinking before she does.”
“And Luke’s not interested in her?”
She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Why? Are you?” Was she jealous at the mention of another woman? That I could work with.
I fell back onto the bed, pulling her down next to me. “I think you know that the only person I’m interested in is you.”
I propped myself up on my elbow as she lay on her back, watching me as I looked at her.
“I think you’re used to getting what you want,” she said, giving me a small amount of insight into why she was holding herself back. I couldn’t argue, she was right.
“And I think I’ve become a challenge,” she continued.
“Maybe that’s true.” I liked that she was challenging, that she hadn’t just given in to me, but that wasn’t it for me. Haven was a total package and I liked the whole thing.
“I think that when you’ve conquered that challenge, you’ll be on to the next.”
I couldn’t blame her for assuming that, but I knew myself well enough to know that wasn’t it. “I can understand why you would think that,” I said as I trailed my fingers across her full, red lips and down her neck.
“You’re not going to try and convince me that that’s not what will happen?”
I shook my head as my hand continued its journey between her breasts.
“How come?” she asked, her words uneven as she tried to keep her breath steady. I smiled at her reaction and bent to kiss her.