Page 26 of Resist Me Not
“How about… making it to date four?”
He smiles, fully relaxed now, and thinking whatever anxiety he had been feeling utterly foolish. “To date four,” he says, and we clink to seal out toast.
Being captive to our schedules and professions is one of many things we have in common. While Walker isn’t the overly refined type, he appreciates a good meal. Given his profession, he is just as likely to survive on fast food and peanut butter sandwiches as to indulging in fine dining, but I can’t always indulge either when I need to make a quick getaway, whether from a centralized location or even a whole city.
Our meal arrives just in time for our second glasses of wine. A simple three courses of roasted beetroot salad, chicken masala, and plain New York cheesecake, no compote to “ruin it,” as Walker once told me. It’s all some of his favorite foods and well balanced with the wine. I even have a small bottle of masala to pair with dessert.
We finish it and are ready for a second bottle of Chardonnay once we are done eating, buzzed but not too tipsy after a filling meal. And not so filling of a meal that we’ll need to wait too long before moving on to other things. Despite the body in the closet no doubt well on its way through rigor mortis, I feel no need to rush. I enjoy Walker’s company and believe I still would even without the promise of what’s to come.
“I love Van Morrison,” Walker says with a hazy smile. We have moved to the sofa, and he tips closer beside me to rest his head on my shoulder.
Loving Van Morrison was not one of the tidbits about Walker I picked up before. Purely coincidence. Kismet. “I find his love songs to be sorely underappreciated. Better on vinyl than on a laptop though.” I nod at how I set up my laptop to accommodate a little background music, currently in front of us on the coffee table.
“Did you have a record player growing up?” Walker asks.
“We did. My mother still has it. I can remember her dancing with me on her feet.”
“Yet you never managed to learn how to do it well, huh?” He chuckles.
I turn my head to speak into the soft tresses of his sandy-colored hair. “I thought I slow-danced rather adequately.”
He nuzzles upward like a pet asking for a kiss. I give him one above his temple. “I’m surprised you’d settle for adequate anything.” Walker lifts his head to look at me, gray eyes alive with the fairy lights twinkling in them.
“I don’t have much opportunity to practice dancing.”
“We have the opportunity now.” He sits up, takes another sip of wine, then takes my glass from me to set both on the coffee table. After a clearly purposely and overly elegant roll to his feet, he extends a hand to me to lift me to mine.
Walker leads me out into the middle of the room. The table setup is more central, but we have enough space for a slow dance. He pulls me in close, adjusting his hold on me so he is leading. They say a good dancer feels the music with their heart and soul and the body follows. Perhaps I have never excelled at it because I have no heart or soul.
It feels a little like I might be wrong about that when Walker begins to sway us.
“Just don’t stand on my feet,” he teases, nudging mine with his to get me to follow his steps.
It’s still mostly just swaying, but I can manage a slow box step to “I Forgot That Love Existed.”
I haven’t even fully tasted him yet, but I have never known this sensation before, this absolute certainty that Walker is mine, no one else’s,neveranyone else’s ever again, and I am never going to let him go.
“Now you’re getting it,” Walker says, soft beneath the music. He shifts his hold on me to wrap both arms around my neck. “There’s hope for you yet.”
I grip his waist and run my hands upward, fingers tracing his spine. I am so very eager to finally see his full tattoo. “You look even more radiant than usual under twinkling lights.”
Walker grins. “I feel underdressed.”
“Oh? We can remedy that.” I pull my hands between us and run them up his chest like I might undo his tie. But I am the oneoverdressed in a classic black tux, so I tug my bowtie loose instead.
“Not a clip-on. I’m impressed.”
“I am offended you would expect otherwise.”
He laughs and drags his hands down from around my neck to pull the tie from my collar and drops it to the floor. After I undo my top shirt button, and only the top, Walker fans his fingers there, feeling my bared collarbone. Our feet are scarcely moving anymore but we are still slightly swaying.
I want to suck his pouty lower lip into my mouth and oh so gentlybite.
I start with a tender tracing of the scar left from the day we met. It’s still healing. It might vanish completely someday, but I secretly hope it does not. I hope some faint line is always there as a reminder of the first time I tended to mygood boyand claimed him from the clutches of someone so undeserving.
I lean forward to lick the scar’s length, and Walker shudders. Every time he does that I want to cause the reaction again and again. I move to his ear, lick it, and then gently suck and bite the lobe like I wanted to his lip.
Walker moans and bares his neck to me.
