He tilts his head skyward as if struggling with control before he says, “There’s an extra toothbrush and toothpaste in the middle drawer in the bathroom.” He closes my hand around the blanket, and releases me, stepping back and giving his jaw a scrub, the rasp of a rapidly thickening stubble against his palm. It looks good on him. Is there anything about this man that I don’t find sexy?
Apparently not, because when his hands settle on his hips, my gaze sweeps his tattoos of varied bright colors and I wonder why I have yet to kiss a single one. “The delivery should have everything you need,” he says. “I told them to imagine you’d lost your suitcase in a foreign country and I answered a bunch of questions about you.”
“Questions?”
“Hmm. How do you look? How do you smell? How do you taste?”
My eyes go wide and he laughs. “Not the latter two, but,” he steps into me again and presses his lips to my ears, “the answer is, like candy. You look, smell, and taste like candy.” He kisses my neck. “Brush your teeth. I want to kiss you.” He releases me and disappears from the bedroom, his bedroom where he’s invited me and now left me to use as I wish.
I am reeling from Kace’s touch and his words, really from every moment with him, and now I am in his most intimate of places. I rotate and survey the room, his bedroom. It’s on a corner of the apartment, a half-circle of windows wrapping the space, and delivering the illusion that we are floating on the Hudson River. The bed is to my right, framed by gray wood and a gray cushioned headboard. To my left are a deep navy-blue loveseat and double doors opening to the balcony. And right in front of me, lying on the gray carpet is my purse and phone, which has me laughing. He was so consumed by me being naked that he threw them to the ground.
Smiling now, relaxing into the experience of being here with Kace for the first time all morning, I grab my phone and purse and hurry toward the door opposite the bed that I believe to be the bathroom. Sure enough, I find a room of white tiles swirled with light grays, a giant claw foot tub, and framed by an arched window, with a stunning river view. One I can’t admire at present for good reason. I shut the door and drop the blanket, rushing to the separate stall to pee. Once I’ve washed up, I spy a thin navy robe hanging on the back of the door, and waste no time sliding it around me, only to have my hands swallowed. I try to roll the sleeves up but it’s a struggle I barely manage.
Once I can at least mostly find my hands, I head to the double sinks and open the middle drawer. Inside, I find about a dozen unopened toothbrushes that I assume to be for his travels. I think of his talk of retiring from the concert circuit and I believe Kace really is done. I could feel that in him last night and I really can’t blame him.
I grab a tube of toothpaste from the drawer and quickly brush my teeth. Opening another drawer, I find face soap and scrub off the mess of my makeup. When I’m done, I stare at the section of the counter Kace obviously puts to the most use and the leather organizer filled with his products. There is one cologne called Juniper Sling by Penhaligon, which I apparently love because the man always smells delicious. Other than that, there’s a comb, a brush, and a razor. That is all. Everything in his home is neat and clean, simplistic even. I can’t really say that about my bathroom, so I’m pretty sure I’ve already discovered that we’d never make it as a couple because I’d drive him nuts. Not that we’re going to be a couple. He’s working me out of his system. And me him, as well. That’s all this is. I think. Isn’t it?
There’s a knock on the door. “Aria? You okay in there?”
I smile all over again and open the door to find him, as I have two times before now, standing right in front of me, his hand on the doorjamb above his head. “Why is it that when I shut a door, you always knock?”
He folds me to him. “Maybe I just like you better on my side of the door but,” he adds, “I can’t decide if I like you better with my robe on or off. Off wins, as long as you’re naked.” He kisses my hand and then steps to my side to show me a collection of a dozen bags sitting by the bed.
“My God, Kace,” I whisper. “What have you done?”
“I threw this trip on you, so I made sure you have anything and everything you could need.”
A memory of my father leading my mother into a room filled with gifts for her birthday flickers in my mind. He’d loved her. He’d spoiled her. But she hadn’t needed the gifts. She’d just needed him. He knew that, too.
I turn to Kace. “Let me just shower here and I swear to you, Kace, I can run to my apartment and be packed in five minutes. I can wear my dress from last night, and change on the plane.”
“It won’t be ready until Monday and your five minutes to pack will be an hour we don’t have in traffic. If my agent didn’t have a big studio meeting he was flying out to tonight, we wouldn’t have a time crush, but we do.”
“Soon is not Monday Kace.”
He catches my arms and steps into me. “In my defense, I promise you, that they told me later today, but they called and told me a machine went down.”
“Wonderful.”
“I can be. I want you to enjoy everything that’s in those bags. And we can exchange anything that you don’t like or doesn’t fit. I want you to love it all.”
I glance at the bags, one of which reads Gucci and the other, Chanel. “There’s a lot of money in those bags, Kace.”
He waves that off. “I’m not worried about the money.”
“I am.” Embarrassment begins to burn in my belly. He saw the Goodwill label. I know he did. “You saw the tag on my dress, didn’t you?”
“I want to do this for you.”
In other words, he did. “I know you saw the label on my dress. I don’t need or want your charity.”
His mood spikes in the air and he cups my face. “That’s what you think this is?”
My hand flattens on his chest. “I don’t spend a lot of money on myself. I don’t need you to do it either. I’m here for you, not your money. And why would you even want me here, if you thought it was the money? I need my dress back.”
“I want to do this for you,” he repeats, his voice steel that is somehow brushed with tenderness. “Not to make you feel obligation or guilt. To make you happy. And because I greedily want you with me.”
He wants me with him. There is a rasp to those words, a ring of truth. I believe him. And that matters. “I don’t need fancy things. I can’t stand the idea of you thinking I’m with you one moment because of your money. I’m not that girl.”
Something flickers in his eyes, and he cuts his stare, seconds ticking by before he meets my gaze again. “I know that, Aria.” His thumbs stroke my cheeks. “I know.”
But he doesn’t know. He can’t know. In that moment, I discover yet another thing I know about this man and he about me. When you hold a prize in your hand, a gift, a wonder of the world that holds value, the entire world wants it and you. There is no peace to be found. Everyone around you could have an agenda, could want what you have. And with that I find yet another reason that I am drawn to him. He doesn’t know what is real in his life any more than I know what is real in mine. And somehow there is a sanctuary in two like souls haunted by demons of the same evil.