HIM

I hadn’t planned on kissing her.

I hadn’t planned on ever kissing her.

Fantasizing about it and actually doing it, I’ve long ago learned are two very different things.

As are wanting to stop yourself and actually stopping yourself.

And in this moment, I just couldn’t.

The way she looked at me when she turned around and saw me, all of me, without my mask, without my armor, stripped me of any control.

She didn’t cringe, she didn’t wince, she didn’t recoil with repulsion or fear or pity.

It’s like she didn’t even see the scar.

And I wanted to kiss her to thank her for it. For giving me something I haven’t felt in a long time. The feeling of being seen.

“Jade,” I moan against her lips as our kiss deepens. She responds by running her fingers through my hair and pressing her mouth harder against mine. It’s even better than the sleepy kiss from yesterday, because this time she’s awake, she knows what’s happening, and she’s responding. This time her chest is purposely pressing against mine, and this time her moans are from feeling how amazing our kiss is.

Her hand comes up between us and pushes against my chest. She pushes me away, panting for breath.

“Kaine,” she whispers between breaths.

“Sweet Jade,” I whisper back, running the back of my hand down her soft cheek.

Then the simultaneous growls of our empty stomachs break the moment.

She immediately bends over, laughing, tugging on my hand as she does, and I pull on her hand, twirling her into the circle of my arms, catching her giggling body in mine. Her laughter dies down slowly as I enjoy the feeling of finally holding her without having to worry about her well-being.

“I think our bodies are trying to tell us something,” she finally says. I raise an eyebrow in question even though she can’t see me. “It’s trying to tell us that whatever’s in the picnic basket you took out of the trunk, needs to be eaten and needs to be eaten now.”

I can’t help but let out a loud guffaw that makes her jump and she pulls away, gazing at me. I turn my face, so my right side is hidden to her. She shakes her head and lifts her finger to press gently on my chin.

“Don’t,” she whispers, “don’t ever do that again.”

I don’t know how or why, but in the course of today, something has shifted between us. An agreement, an understanding, a mutual acknowledgement that something is happening between us.

We stare at each other for a moment. And then I say, “let’s eat.”

Which is met with a round of applause.

I reluctantly let go of her hand and open the picnic basket with a flourish, pull a thick woollen blanket from its depths, and shake it out onto the ground. She kneels on the blanket, smoothing it out with her hands as I start unpacking the basket, pulling out the gourmet feasts I’d picked up at the Chelsea Market before coming to pick her up.

“Oh yes,” she moans as she watches me pull out the endless array of food, picking up each item and examining it.

“Roasted stuffed peppers, yum! Arancini. God yes, bring on the deep-fried stuff. Is this... goat stewed with sago and sweet potato? Be still my digestive system.”

I can’t help but smile at her excitement about the food. It mirrors how I feel every time I wander the aisles at the market—my secret, guilty pleasure, one of the only rare reasons I ever linger in public.

I hand her a plate and fork without looking, preoccupied with searching the basket for some champagne glasses. She laughs and taps on my hand and I look up. She’s already dug into the container of melon wrapped in prosciutto, completely without the help of utensils.

She gestures for me to open my mouth and slips a slice of melon into my tongue when I do. I catch the tip of her finger with my lips and suck gently on the tip. It tastes sweet and salty, just like the antipasto she’s fed me. And I want more.

I lean over and open my mouth again. This time she picks a stuffed olive from the small jar and pops it onto my tongue, her finger lingering this time, waiting. I roll my tongue over it, without closing my mouth, and she closes her eyes for just a brief second.

It’s like we’re two different people. Any barriers between us are completely gone.

But I have no doubt that by night’s end, I’m going to need to taste more of her than her finger.

“My turn,” she whispers huskily and she scoots over to me, her bottom lip dropping open.

“What would you like?” I ask her, because it’s safer than telling her what I’d like to do to her right now.

“Surprise me,” she says, closing her eyes.

I reach into the basket for the box I was meaning to save for dessert. It’s a small handful of maple glazed chestnuts, a French delicacy, rarely sold except during the Christmas. I’d hoarded a box at the office after a trip to Paris but now it seems the perfect time to break it open. I unwrap the sticky chestnut from the cellophane and lower it to her mouth, slowly tracing the line of her lips, letting the crystallizing glaze cling to her. Her tongue darts out, unable to contain her curiosity and she licks the almost sickly-sweet nectar from her lips. Once they’re clean, I wait for her tongue to disappear back into her mouth before I gently press the chestnut past her lips. She devours it immediately; soft moans vibrating from her throat as she savors the musky, nutty, unctuous morsel.

“Oh my god, what was that?” she finally says, her eyes lazily opening, her voice thick with satisfaction.

“That was a marron glacé, a glazed chestnut,” I tell her, secretly thrilled that she enjoyed it so much.

“It was divine,” she sighs.

“Yes, it was,” I say, giving her a wink.

She giggles and reaches for some of the marinated eggplant and pops it into her mouth, licking up an errant drop of olive oil from the corner of her mouth with her tongue. Watching her makes me realize I am famished and we take turns feeding ourselves and each other until almost all the food is gone.

Hardly a word is spoken as we watch the sun set while we suck on the last of the plump raspberries, washing them down with the champagne. During the meal she’d moved closer and closer to me, and now her back is resting against my chest as we both face the river.

“Kaine?” she says, soft against the night breeze.

“Hm?”

“You don’t have to answer but...” And I already know what she’s going to ask.  But I wish she wouldn’t. “What- what happened?”

I don’t answer.

I don’t answer for a very, very long time.

She doesn’t push it but she doesn’t say anything else either. I, on the other hand, can’t get Xavier’s “just ask her” comment out of my head.

“How about this,” I finally speak up. “How about we get three questions each? We get to veto the question but then we lose one of our questions. If we don’t have any left, we have to answer.”

“Deal,” she says instantly, nodding her head in agreement.

I laugh, “you don’t want to think about it?”

“No, because, I’m ready to answer anything.”

“I wish I could be as confident,” I tell her, honestly.

“You should be. You can tell me anything, Kaine,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Okay, who gets to go first?”

“Well, you already asked your question!” I tease her.

“No! That was before the game. I take it back now!” she sits up, protesting.

“Okay, okay. But you can still go first.”

“Okay,” she takes a sip of her drink as she mulls over a question. I’m surprised she doesn’t immediately repeat her last one. “Ok, how did you know about this place?” she asked as she waves her hand in front of us, gesturing towards the building.

“Well, um, I used to work in this building,” I tell her.  “It’s one of the last ever printing presses in New York City. I worked here, illegally, when I was 13 and sleeping every night right over there.” I turn to point to the stack of discarded wood on the ground about 50 feet away.

“You’re kidding. You lived on the streets?”

“No. I mean, no, I’m not kidding. And no, I wasn’t exactly living on the streets. I was... er, I was living in a foster home at the time and well, sleeping behind the pile of crossties was a better alternative than going home.”

“Oh. Kaine.” She touches the side of my face and the look is so tender, I have to look away.

“It’s okay. I own this building now,” I shrug and she laughs. “Okay, my turn. Why did you try so hard to find me?” I have to know.

She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, and I like that she’s taking my question seriously. “Kaine, I value my life. I love my life. I love my job, I love my friends. I love living in New York City. I love food. And champagne. I love all of it. And I would’ve been really, really sad if I had had to stop living so soon. So, it was really important to me that I got to thank the person, you, who let me keep living, even if just for another day.”

She doesn’t look at me while she’s talking, leaning back against my chest.

And I’m glad for that. Because it lets me take in every word without having to worry about her watching my expression. I imagine it would tell her more than I’m willing to let her know.

“Oh. Well, thanks accepted. And... it was all my pleasure,” I say, dropping a kiss on the top of her head.

“My turn!” She rubs her hands together and there’s something evilly maniacal about it. “Why didn’t you want me to find you?”

“Was that always going to be your question?” I ask her.

“Is that your second question?” she quips.

“No!”

“Then I’m not answering it until you answer mine,” she says haughtily.

I take a breath. “I didn’t want the real me to ruin the fantasy you had of me in your head.”

“You idiot,” she whispers, and my heart warms. “Am I allowed a bonus follow up question?”

“Let me hear it first,” I concede.

“What did you think my fantasy of you was like?”

I shrug. I hadn’t really thought of it in specific detail, just that I knew I wasn’t it. “I thought you’d want me, or imagined me, to be tall and handsome and rugged and sexy and brave.”

“So... the reality and the fantasy are one.”

I don’t have an answer that doesn’t sound self-deprecating, which would ruin the sharing mood. So, I don’t say anything.

“Silly, silly man,” she whispers and turn around, pressing a soft kiss to my cheek. I touch my cheek where she kisses me and give her wink. “Okay, next question for me!” she prompts me excitedly.

“Okay, let me see. If you could sit down with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be, and what’s the first question you’d ask them?”

Her body stiffens and she sits up, back straight, facing away from me. Running her hands through her hair, she pulls it to one side, to rest over her left shoulder. Her hands fall into her lap and she stares out into the night for a moment.

“I’d like to, I’d like to have one last meal with my mother. And I’d ask her if there’s anything she sees in me that reminds her of herself. My mother, she was, she was so beautiful. So graceful. Soft spoken, sweet. But I was too young to understand the deeper things like, how she saw the world, what she valued, what her dreams were. I just wonder... if any of it lives on in me.”

“I really wish I could give you that.”

“You can’t.”

“No. But I can tell you that if you did sit down with her, she’d tell you she’s proud of the person you are.”

“You don’t even know me,” she says. She’s right, but I know enough.

“I know you snort when you crylaugh,” I tease her.

“VETO!” she yells and throws an empty food container at me.

I swat it away. “And your last question?”

“Where did you get the scar?” she asks without hesitation.

And I answer the same way. “In a fire.”

She nods and says no more. I don’t know if I’m relieved or not.

“Okay, my last question – what’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” I ask her as if it’s the most important question in the world. She giggles, her whole body shaking, and I wrap my arms around her, wanting to be part of the constant joy she exudes, something I haven’t felt myself in so long. “What? You can tell a lot about a person from their favorite ice cream flavor!”

“Well, I don’t like ice cream,” she says and turns and looks at me just as my face expresses my horror.

“You don’t like ice cream?”

“No,” she shrugs, then her face breaks out into a grin “I FREAKING LOVE IT! I would eat ice cream for every meal of every day if I could.”

I clutch at my chest. “Oh, thank God. I thought I was going to have to leave you stranded here. I can’t be seen with someone who doesn’t like ice cream.”

“Vanilla,” she finally answers.

“So plain?”

“Because it’s plain. It’s a blank canvas; a delicious, sweet, fragrant canvas, you can add anything to it, it’s so versatile and forgiving.”

“Well, that’s good, because... it’s my favorite too.”

I reach over into the basket and pull out a small tub of vanilla ice cream and two spoons.

“You really did think of everything!” she exclaims, reaching for the tub. “So, I have a deal, I have one last question, and we’ll both answer it.”

I nod and hand her a spoonful of ice cream.

“What is... the biggest dream you have for your life?” she asks.

I suck the ice cream off my own spoon, taking a moment before answering.

“That.” I point across the river to my building, the ASH logo illuminated, bright against the night sky.

“That’s your building? That’s what your biggest dream is?”

“No, well, yes. In a way. Not just the building itself, but what my company and my team are trying to achieve.”

“And what is that?”

“Zero deaths from house fires by 2025.”

She lets out a slow long whistle. “You don’t think small, do you?

“Well, I dream big, whether it’s achievable or not... well, no. Scrap that. I will achieve it. Can I show you something?”

“I’d be honored to see it.”

I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and open a video. It’s a video of the FireFree prototype. I hand it to her and she watches it, her eyes fixed on the screen.

“It’s a product I’ve been working on for the last five years. It’s the most innovative and intuitive smoke detector the world has ever seen. Developed to detect the smallest trace of smoke, determine what kind of smoke it is, and discern different levels of danger. It’s runs on a 20-year lithium battery, so there are no 6 monthly battery changes, one of the biggest causes of undetected fires in homes that claim they have smoke detectors. On top of that, one of the biggest complaints was that smoke detectors are ugly, an eyesore. So, we’ve collaborated with DuPont, and customers can order the detector in any of their 25 most popular complementary colors and there’s a choice of four designs. But it’s the future we’re looking at. The aim is for all new houses to be fitted with them, and we’ve created a line where they can be built directly into the ceilings of new homes, hooked directly to the electrical system and never even be seen. So, there will be...”

“...no excuse for a house not to have a smoke detector ever again,” she finishes. I nod. She gets it, of course she does.

“We’re also working with a number of New York’s biggest construction companies right now on a community campaign. For every smoke detector they order from us for their new properties, we will donate one to low income housing areas in the city. No fire related deaths for everyone. Not just those who can afford it.” I take a deep breath. I can’t remember the last time I talked for so long without stopping.

“Kaine.”

“That’s my dream, Jade. You asked. I’ve... I’ve never really verbalized it like that before.”

“It’s... it’s monumental. Good luck with it all.” She hands me back my phone.

“And yours?”

“It’s nothing like that, I’m afraid. Maybe I’m... I’m too small a person, too small a dreamer. It’s not a building I can point to or a world changing product I can show you. I guess, I guess it’s just more of a feeling. I hope that when I’m gone, when people think of me, they’ll smile. I hope I’ll leave the world as a happy thought in someone’s mind.”

“Now it’s my turn to say it.”

“What’s that?

“That you’re silly.  You CAN point to it. Here, I’ll show you.” I raise my finger and jab her gently in the chest.

“My tit? Thanks,” she pokes her tongue out at me.

“No, your heart. It’s bigger than that building of mine over there. It exudes joy. And the effect of that is infinite.”

Her eyes look up to meet mine, and something inside me tugs. She reaches up and takes the finger pointing at her chest and pulls it in closer, so my entire palm is pressed against her breasts. She takes a breath, and my hand presses harder against her as her chest rises and falls.

“Kaine.” She exhales my name. And it reverberates in my ears. God, I love her voice.

“Kiss me, Kaine,” she says this time. And I’ve never been more inclined to obey.

I press her down onto the blanket with my hand on her chest and move my body so I’m hovering over her.

“Say it again,” I tell her.

“Kiss me, Kaine.” She complies and I do. Dropping my mouth down to meet hers, I’m surprised by her immediate response. She presses her lips against mine, hard, her mouth prying mine open so she can slip her tongue past my lips. Her hands come up, grabbing fistsful of my hair as she almost devours my mouth. Her passion inflames me and I can’t think of anything but making love to her, right here, right now.

“Oh, Jade,” I hear my voice moan her name, and it seems to only increase her urge. She scratches her hands down my back, and I growl as her nails dig into me.

Her legs wrap around my waist and she bucks her groin against mine.

I am so hard, I feel like I could fuck her right through our clothes.

Something about the way she pulls on my sweater, tearing it over my head and then dragging her lips over my bare chest tells me she feels the same.

“Kaine... God, Kaine.” She murmurs as I suckle on her neck, my hand reaching between us to graze my fingers over her inner thigh.

“Baby, I want you,” I growl as her legs fall from my back and spread out under me. “I want you so much.”

“Then take me, please,” she whimpers, taking my hand and pressing it against her breast again.

BRINGGGGGGG!!!!

My phone erupts into life in my pocket just as I reach for the hem of her skirt.

FUCK!

“Just ignore it,” I whisper, grazing my teeth along her neck. I can’t stop, don’t make me stop.

She laughs and pushes on my chest, “It’s fine. It might be important. I’m not going anywhere... I promise.” Her fingers tickle me behind my ear, making me lose all focus.

“Ugh!” I kiss her on the lips quickly and reach into my pocket, half meaning to fling it off the building’s roof.

I glance at the screen quickly and frown. The call is coming from my apartment.

“Yes?” I answer.

“Mr. Ashley? It’s Nancy, your nurse. Gabriel is gone.”

Fuck.