More Than A Maybe (16 page)

I look at Xavier for a long, long time. The low murmurs of the dinnertime conversations around me mingle with my own thoughts.
Can that Book become real for me, Xavier?
I wonder silently.

I know that I want the beauty of a Goddess. And I know you can help give it to me. But if I allow myself to slip myself between those pages, into those dreams . . . where will I disappear to?

Alice. Alice White. That girl . . . she’s still inside me, I realize. She’s an uninvited guest at our dinner table, yet I just can’t let her go, somehow.

But Veronica Kane truly doesn’t want to think about her.

Not now.

I decide to do the only thing I can think of. I take a sip of wine . . . and I change the subject.

“By the way, this dress? Baby helped me get it. She’s the one that took me shopping today.”

Xavier looks genuinely surprised at the sound of her name. “You two are shopping buddies now? So soon? During our drinks together you seemed a bit . . .”

“Bitchy?” I offer.

He smiles. “I might have chosen the word
curt.
”

I shrug my shoulders. “I think we understand each other a little better after today,” I say. “She told me about her and Randall, a little . . . ” I leave it at that. I’m not sure how many other details I should mention about our conversation.

Xavier rolls his eyes. “Those two. Honestly, I can’t imagine a couple in the world that deserves each other more. I suppose it beats the alternative, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“A lifeless marriage,” he says. “Whatever those two have figured out to keep themselves interested in each other, it seems to be working. I mean, you saw them. They’re like horny teenagers when they’re together. Poster children for affection. I’ve never met two people so devoted to each other. In bed or out.”

I smile. “Lucky couple.”

I think I see a faint twinkle in Xavier’s eye, and he almost looks like he’s about to say something . . . but a waiter takes the moment of silence to interrupt.

“Sir, Miss, if I may,” he says, clearing the table of our empty plates with a practiced economy of movement. “Your dessert.”

Xavier smiles. “Watch, Veronica. You’ll like this.” The waiter pushes an immaculately-polished espresso machine alongside our table on a little cart. It’s old-looking, almost arcane, with the most complicated-looking mechanism . . . so entirely different from the automated push-button models I usually see at coffee shops. I see the waiter pause for the briefest of moments; he runs a gloved hand over one of the machine’s gleaming silver handles, as if reassuring it.

Then there is action — a fast flicking of his wrists, and he’s suddenly in full movement, his hands breaking into an incredible ballet of graceful precision. Now the basket, now the coffee, now the tamper; now the white-noise hiss of the steam in a chilled pitcher of milk.

It’s incredible.

Two porcelain cups appear from nowhere — at first empty and then full, without any noticeable transition between the two states. It’s like magic . . . no, it
is
magic . . . an effortless culinary conjuring of remarkable skill.

Then there is fire — a kitchen torch is in the waiter’s hand, crackling its burst of flame over the rim of the two cups.

I can only stare. “Is he . . . burning something?”

Xavier chuckles.

“Not exactly. He’s
brûléeing
something.”

The scent of caramelizing sugar fills the air, mingling with the heady smell of fresh-pulled espresso. A moment later and it is done, and the waiter places the cups neatly in front of us.

He gives a little nod. “Enjoy,” he says.

Then he is gone. I almost want to applaud . . . but instead, my eyes fall on the cup. The foamy white head of the drink holds the golden brown crust of the brûlée with a delightful tension. On top, five large crystals of shiny rock salt balance improbably, but they do not move.

I put my hand on the cup, and I’m just about to take my first sip — but Xavier stops me.

“Wait,” he says. “I want to capture this.”

Xavier takes out his xPhone, does the special movement to unlock it. He points it directly at me, and I smile. I hear a soft click sound. Xavier takes a second to admire his work on the glossy illuminated screen.

“Perfect,” he says, turning the phone around to show me.

I’ve never really liked looking at pictures of myself, but I have to admit that this one is nice. The dessert drink in the foreground looks a little huge, but in my dress and in this light the composition definitely works.

“I want a copy of that, okay?” I say.

“Your wish is my command.”

At last I take my first mouthful of the dessert drink. It tastes as scrumptious as it looks.

We don’t say much as we enjoy those first sips together. It’s nice when you can stop talking — just let go of the noise, and enjoy the warmth of each other’s company. Xavier and I seem to be reaching that point, and yet . . .

I hope he deserves the trust I’m putting into him.
I need this to be real.
So much of his true self still seems locked off to me. If there actually is a man named Xavier Black, if he exists beneath his skin, I know now that I’m ready to search until I find him. He’s a cypher — a man so wrapped up in his vision of the future, he’s forgotten to build a present for himself. A here and a now.

Baby had said that Xavier was actually
homeless.
It was so hard to believe that someone could get to his position in life without having accumulated any number of important things . . . along with a place in which to keep them.

It’s too bizarre not to ask about. “I just realized: I don’t even know where you live,” I say, trying to make it sound like an off-handed comment.

It’s been pointed out before,
Xavier’s nod seems to say. “To be honest, I don’t know myself,” he says, as his charmingly sculpted face becomes thoughtful. “I consider myself something of a nomad. Perhaps I think of life itself as a thing of impermanence . . . or perhaps I spend too much of my time with digital distractions,” he says, tapping the darkened screen of the xPhone in front of him. “I’m not entirely sure. I just feel as if the more things you own, the more problems you create for yourself. So maybe I worry that if I had a more permanent home, it would end up getting full of things I don’t need.”

“Oooookay . . . ” I say slowly, not liking the sound of that at all. “But in that case, I’m a little confused. What about that car you showed me — the one that drives itself?” I say, thinking back to the terror-filled moment on the highway when Xavier had taken his hands off the steering wheel. “You said something about wanting to have unique things, didn’t you?”

“Perhaps I did,” he says. He looks at me with a face that suggests he’s keeping his cards close to his chest. “Still, those types of things are few and far between . . . and they must be, of course, very very special.”

Xavier reaches over and places his warm hand across my own.

Whatever that touch signifies, I want to explore it — more than anything else in the world. Somehow, in some way, I’m determined to get Xavier down out of the clouds and plant him on Earth where he belongs.

It’s possible, I can tell. He may speak of being a nomad, of impermanence . . . and yet the lost look in his eyes tells me more than any words ever could.

Xavier Black is looking for someone to bring him home.

* * *

Home isn’t where we end up, though.

Naturally.

“Oh, Xavier . . .” The sound of my passions slipping from my lips come in the shape of his name. There’s nothing I can do to contain them. I’m grateful for two things right now — the solid but yielding softness of our room’s massive bed, and the fact that our hotel room has very thick walls.

Well . . . technically I’m grateful for more than that. Most of all, beyond anything, I’m grateful for the person who is currently sending me into naked throes of ecstasy. I’m on my hands and knees now, thick handfuls of bedclothes in my hands to steady myself. Xavier is behind me — he has me by the waist now, his strong hands keeping a steady hold on me. He slams into me, again and again, filling me utterly with his beautiful cock. I’ve never felt so entirely alive. He moves his exacting and masculine fingers around to my belly and then downward, to tease my moist and rigid clit with the hot touch of a man consumed.

I push myself backward now, thrusting my sex toward him, as his rising growls of pleasure spur me on. While he might have been the one to push me to the bed face-first, I’m the one fucking
him
now . . . the subtle shift of insistence in his voice only confirms it, and I drive myself onto him with pure and unrestrained desire.

And then I gasp; he pulls out of me in a way that’s completely unexpected. The sensation of absence makes me stare over my shoulder at him, my haunted eyes wondering if he’s playing some selfish game with me. He only stares back, his eyes meeting mine in a ferocious storm of fire . . . then he is on top of me, turning my body to face him just before his sweat-slick chest crashes against my own.

He guides his hand between us, moving his thumb and forefinger to my nipple. I feel it redden, stiffening at his touch. He lowers his mouth to take it between the warmth of his lips. “They’re beautiful,” he says.

“They’re small,” I say, the response reflexive. I don’t know why I say it. I just do. I feel self-conscious about them, even now — like he’s poking around at some part of me that I don’t want to think about. It’s only a shadow, however, and one that passes at the flicking of his tongue around my areola . . . it’s good . . .
it’s so, so good . . .

He lifts his mouth and speaks then — and a change sweeps into his voice. The sound of it is hollow, vulnerable, and somehow far away . . .

“I’m worried, Veronica,” he whispers. “I’m worried that we’re going to fuck, and then I’m going to leave.”

The words are almost cruel . . . but there’s no cruelty in the voice that speaks them. He doesn’t seem to say them to hurt me. He says them like it’s something that’s bound to happen. Like the sun setting, or the Earth spinning on its axis. Is it an apology? Honesty? Or is it just another challenge?

I stare deeply into him.

I challenge you, and you challenge me?

Is that how this works?

Fine.

I reach my hand down and palm his still-slick erection. “Oh, really?” I ask him, hoping that the confidence I force into my voice will hold. I pull him forward, teasingly, with a gentle tug. It ignites something in him at once. Instantly Xavier, my Xavier . . . he’s back. A half-moment later and I can feel him there, between my thighs, again entering my wet sex. He’s back inside me now, and the pleasure comes with him; wave after shattering wave of blinding overwhelming erotic bliss, shooting through every corner of my body. I marvel at the expression of animalistic want on his face, and I simply know —
this man is not going anywhere.

I feel my orgasm approaching fast; my mind is lost, going giddier with each decisive thrust of his muscular hips. The look on my face says everything,
everything
— but before I can reach my climax, his intensity suddenly slows.

“Not yet,” he says. “Wait for it. Not until I say.”

You challenge me, I challenge you — and back again.
I allow my eyes to swim in his gaze as I look at him, nodding, trying to match the shallow gasps of my own desperate breathing to his own.
Not until he tells me. Not until he tells me. Not until he . . .

“Now,” he says, and I come with a force that rocks me, bends me — my back arches and I see light, I actually do — the sweet release of my body pushing me, driving me, and we slip together over the swirling edge of a breathless infinity . . .

He collapses against me in a wet heap of satisfaction, the both of us more than a little spent. His arms are around me then, holding me in a cradle of protection. I lean backward into him and bask in our shared glow, feeling the soft steady rhythm of his breath on my neck.

After a few satisfied minutes, I feel the warmth of Xavier’s fingers on my back. They move in curious little flourishes — little backwards C-shapes that feel delicious against the sensitive glow of my skin.

“I love that,” I say.

“Hm?” he says. I feel his hand stop suddenly, resting motionless against my back.

“Oh, don’t stop,” I say. “It’s wonderful.”

His hand begins to move again. The motion is a bit different now . . . more aimless, yet still undeniably erotic.

I sigh, letting myself fall helplessly under the spell of his touch.

I’m beginning to let myself believe in him,
I realize.

And not just in him.

In us.

And I think that maybe, slowly . . . Xavier is beginning to believe in us, too.

The next few weeks blur by so quickly it makes me dizzy. One day seems to blend its way into the next, somehow. It’s all I can do to keep up with the pace.

My days are filled with the sights of the city. I visit the LACMA on a couple of different days and drink my fill of the wonders of art. I take long drooling looks at the classic cars at the Peterson Auto Museum. Baby is always ready to hit the shops with me, naturally, and push me to buy anything that catches my eye for more than two seconds. She doesn’t have to push too hard. Shoes and sandals, halter tops and balloon minis . . . in short order, my side of the hotel closet begins to look distinctly more cheerful and colorful.

My nights I spend with Xavier, whenever he can get away. Usually that means dinner — at the hotel, or one of the endless variety of exclusive restaurants he always manages to have a reservation for. Sometimes when Xavier comes to meet me his work comes with him, and his attentions are divided between the food, yours truly, and the endless irritations of his phone. Sometimes he leaves for what he claims will be “just a second” and goes to take calls that stretch into fifteen or twenty minutes while our entrees get cold.

Sometimes he just shuts off the phone altogether, and these are the best times, and the minutes stretch into lazy hours, and we talk about stupid things that make us both laugh.