I Love My Secret (Nicole's Erotic Romance) Read online

  At His… Our…Studio

  Locking the door behind me, I hang my coat on the hooks inside the studio I’ve shared with the painter Michael Benitez for the past six months. He and I met at an exhibit opening for a sculptor neither of us knew personally. I didn’t like Michael at first; thought his disdain for the work to be rude and too loudly expressed by his face and demeanor. Spaniards can be snobbish. You can even hear their assumed superiority in their lisping dialects, over the more accessible Spanish spoken by people from South America.

  But the more I talked to him, the more that first impression changed. We chatted for almost an hour before his seductively slow gestures and dark, penetrating glances got the better of me. He was dryly witty, and his dark cloud touched the dark cloud hidden inside of me. Listening to his critique – “You see how she carved out this line here… she didn’t follow through with the passion of the movement. If she’d allowed herself to really be this work, I would feel it. I don’t.” – I had nodded and soaked in every word. I watched his lips move, the intensity of his deep-set russet-colored eyes punctuating his words with passion. His long hair flowed freely around the olive complexion of his face, as though it were a mane. Being with him made me light-headed and it wasn’t long before I was almost overcome by the impulse to kiss him in front of everyone. Not a peck, but the kind of kiss that would have made the room blush.

  They say you can’t do heroin, not even once, because you’re sure to become addicted, your life changed… forever. I never understood that, until I met Michael. Maybe that first impulse in me – the one that didn’t like him – was my inner voice screaming, run.

  “I’m here,” I call up, as I ascend the stairs.

  Michael’s deep voice echoes against the walls and travels down to lick my ears, his accent heavy and welcoming. “There you are. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  I want to run to him – I always want this – but I keep my pace steady, take my time, measure my breathing, even as my beating heart races. The large open loft-space of familiar white reveals itself, bit by bit. I look over to see him intently inspecting his latest work. He’s wearing his usual uniform; dark jeans hand-wiped with paint, long deep chestnut hair flowing freely past his olive-hued, broad shoulders, bare beneath a white paint-covered, ripped tank-top. No shoes. His skin and hair are highlighted from the glow of over two dozen candles clustered on flat surfaces. This is the way he prefers to paint. I’ve adopted it as my own now, too, when I’m alone here. Even though my alone time is always lit by sunlight shining through the glass, since he has the nights, and me, the days.

  This space has been a Godsend to me, and when he’d suggested I share it with him – on that very first night – I jumped at the chance. This part of town is so hip, completely overpriced and filled with designer’s boutiques. We’re tucked above one, and he’s reluctantly allowed me to pitch in to help with rent. I could never have afforded it on my own. At least, not yet. Maybe someday. Him? He doesn’t need the money. His pieces sell before they’re even finished. It’s humbling for an arrogant woman such as myself. But I like it.

  The studio is just how you’d imagine an artist’s loft space. Paint everywhere. Canvases stacked. Sparse furniture. One wall with large paned windows that could use a good cleaning.

  He looks me up and down, takes in my clothes. “How was your date?”

  I smile at the accuracy of his guess and roll my eyes. “You mean, how was my last date.”

  He touches the brush to canvas once more and whispers while concentrating, “Ahh…not enough man to tame my Nic? Needed to come back to me, didn’t you.” It’s not a question. We both know he’s right on the mark, though I don’t like he said it out in the open like that. Makes me feel like he knows how much power he has over me. He looks back up and changes the subject in the smoothest way. “I’ve been looking at this piece of yours…”

  My heart jumps in my chest as he motions to my swirl of greens and blues with gold emotional accents, lying on the canvas by the south wall. It’s my most unusual, by far. You can usually see more Matisse influences in my work. This one, though, has none of that.

  I ask, “And?” waiting with breath held.

  He steps over to it, touching the tip of his index finger to his lips as he thinks. He glides his hand through the air in front of a small section. “I feel you right here…” He points to other parts and says, “…but here, and here, and here? You are absent.”

  My chest caves in. “You mean everywhere else.”

  He turns and locks eyes with me. “Yes.”

  I look at the floor, the walls, my legs. I’m so disappointed. “God. Are you kidding me? You’ve seen how much I’m putting into this. What is it I’m missing?!” I walk over to the table, pick up a candle and start playing with the wax. He pulls his hair away from his face with both hands, then locks them behind his head, watching me, thinking. The silence is intense and when I turn around, there is only compassion in his eyes. Maybe a bit of impatience, too? I might be projecting.

  I slam the candle down, wax spilling hot onto my fingers, but I don’t care. “Tell me! I can see it in your face that you have the answer.”

  He lets his hands go and walks over to his own work again, picking up the brush. “Nic… you hit the wall until it can no longer stand up to you. This is how it is for us.”

  Artists, he means, those of us who see the world through kaleidoscopes.

  I moan and walk to my canvas that until just now, I was happy with. Not overjoyed… but pleased. I’m not pleased anymore, I can tell you that. I can see what he saw now. The absence of my soul. Dammit! We’re not scientists. What we do transcends the mind. That’s the difference. Picasso painted from his soul. Monet… soul. Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Basquiat, Pollack – soul, soul, soul, soul. Me? I just made something pretty. It’s not enough.

  Looking at it, I whisper, “How can I break through?”

  He walks up behind me and slides his arms around my waist, pulling me to him. I lean against his chest, feel the strength of his muscles tighten against my back. The feel of him both calms and ignites me. He’s like my teacher more than my peer, and when he touches me, it’s like I’m being touched by one of the greats… like I’m lucky. Like any woman on the planet would kill to trade places with me, and yet it’s me he wants. Me he offered to share this private space with. I relax into him as he begins to kiss my neck, sending shivers down my body.

  Michael whispers in my ear, “You… are the only one who can break your wall down. Smash it!” He kisses my earlobe. “What are you afraid of?”

  I breathe, “I don’t know how,” lulled by the moist, warm, hypnotizing caresses of his mouth.

  His fingers lightly circle the soft cotton that covers my nipple, until it becomes hard, grateful. I push my ass against the stiffness growing in his jeans and whisper, “Make love to me, Michael. Please. Take me away from this.”

  He pulls away and walks back to his canvas. “Not tonight. Not yet.”

  Abandoned, I sway from the unexpected loss of his body. Looking at him with deep frustration, I ask, “Why do you always pull away from me? We’ve never…” I want to say fucked, but I stop myself. “We’ve never made love. Is there something wrong with me? I know you’re attracted to me. I just felt the evidence.”

  I feel stupid saying these things. These are things men say to women, not the other way around.

  Pressing the brush onto a palette, he says, as though from another world, “It’s not the time.”

  My eyelids flutter and I bring my hand to my head to steady the spinning. This man is a puzzle I want desperately to solve. I walk to him and wait for him to acknowledge me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he carefully picks out a new paint, as if I am no longer in the room! I can even see he’s still hard. He wants me. I know he wants me. Why is he denying us this?

  “Stop fighting me!” The second I say it, I gasp and cover my mouth with my hands. These are the very words Grant said to me no more than two hours ago.<
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  Without a flicker of emotion, Michael says firmly, “Goodnight.”

  I’m so angry at him, at myself, at… everything! My eyes jealously dart to the canvas, to the easel, precariously set on three slender legs and so easily thrown, if I just give in to this.

  “You don’t find me attractive… that’s what it is.” I march to the stairs.

  “Nic!”

  I spin around.

  “It’s not that… I find you fascinating.”

  “Then make love to me!”

  His eyes set and his jaw tightens. “No.”

  “Fine. Whatever. Fine. I’m leaving.” Not waiting for his objection, one that would never come, I run down the stairs and slam the door.

  Out on the street, I see the soft glow of the candles drifting out of our window, deceptively calm. I want to yell at the window, throw something at it. I contain myself with all the strength and courage I can manage, walking away so I can’t see anything related to Michael anymore. I don’t see the people I’m passing, my mind swimming from the pain of rejection. But I know I don’t want to go home. I’m too worked up. I have to do something with this thing that I’ve got going on right now. Michael doesn’t want to fuck me? Fine. I have someone who does.

  Snatching my phone out, I dial, impatiently waiting for an answer. “Come on. Come on. Come on.” I say until I hear him.

  “Hey you,” he says.

  “You alone?” I ask abruptly, avoiding the eyes of a transsexual who’s giving me the once over as she passes. I smooth out my hair and get myself together.

  Jason yawns and I can hear his smile through the phone. “Yeah. But I don’t want to be.”

  “Good. I’m coming over.”

  Twenty-Three Minutes Later

  Jason opens his door wearing only soft plaid pajama pants. Unlike me, he hasn’t found his passion in life yet, other than making love to women in a way that makes you wish he could turn it into a profession and turn a lot of women’s frowns into shit-eating grins. Jason’s only twenty-five, built with muscles as big and shiny as a Mack truck, and he never, ever, gives me a hard time about wanting to fuck off some steam. He got attached once, a few months ago, but I put it to him that we were only going to be friends. The kind of friends who devour each other whenever we’re in the neighborhood, that is.

  His naked chest is dark mahogany, the same shade as my own. He’s addicted to the gym and since he’s naturally sinewy, every line is extra chiseled; the bits of hair short, curly, barely there. His eyes are deep brown, almond shaped, intelligently amused and always undressing me. As he looks at me now – still half in the dream world I woke him out of – I don’t smile. I’m still worked up and feeling angry. I walk to him nice and slow until I can feel the reassuring warmth of his body, just out of the bed not minutes ago. I sigh and bridge the distance; close my eyes as I mold my body against his, soften myself in the hard nooks of him. He wraps his arms around me and starts massaging my back, taking off my jacket and lowering my bag to the floor somewhere to the side of me. I rest my head on his shoulder, tucked in against his strong neck. His hand comes up and takes my chin, pulls it up. I open my eyes and look into his, making him lean down and kiss me. Our lips are so deliciously familiar to each other, hot and understood. It sparks my blood immediately, although the fire began by someone else. He kisses me with those full lips of his, full like mine, in a long sensual luscious caress and his skill and the fact that I know he cares about me, takes me away to another place where I am no longer angry.

  When he pulls away and gives me a little smile, I nuzzle my cheek against his, and say, “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself,” he says, sliding his hands down my back and cupping my ass, giving it a firm squeeze. I need him.

  I turn my head for another long kiss, the embrace of our mouths making his cock grow against my middle. Behind me, he kicks out his leg and shuts the door, lips locked, tongues teasing as our kiss escalates like a match to gasoline. He furiously pulls off my shirt and bra – grabs each of my breasts in his mouth, one at a time laps them up, making me moan and hold onto his head. When he rises and kisses me hard, his passion overtakes him; the groping and kisses become rougher, hotter. This is why I came here. Make it all go away, Jason. Make it all go away. He pushes me against the wall in the foyer. Yanks off my boots, my jeans, my panties – everything, gone. I even yank out my hoop earrings and toss them onto the floor behind him as he wrangles his flannels off and unleashes that amazing cock of his, naked and standing at attention at an easy ten inches and thick as hell.

  My lipstick is everywhere and my hair is a mess from his hands grabbing it. I look at that beast of a cock and tell it, “I need you.”

  Jason’s eyes twinkle and the smile that spreads across his handsome face makes me think of how Michael never smiles, how he’s a dark cloud of suspense. How exciting it is to be around him. Shut up, Nicole. Don’t think of Michael. Wait… no. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’ll close my eyes and picture this is Michael and maybe that will make this yearning for him subside. My eyes flutter closed and it doesn’t take my vivid imagination long before I see Michael standing in front of me, feel his lips pressing against my skin. Jason kneels down to bury his face between my legs, throwing one over his shoulder as I stand in front of him, and I imagine that it’s Michael kneeling before me, Michael’s head I’m holding onto. Jason slides his tongue into the crease of me, and I picture it’s Michael’s tongue licking my clit and making this sweet warm glow overcome me.

  I bring my hands up over my head, and imagine that the tongue reaching deeper inside me is finally Michael’s. He’s finally lapping me up like I’m lemonade on a summer’s day. My breath catches over and over as I gasp with the wet teasing of his tongue. When his fingers – Michael’s fingers – come up to help, and two of them burrow themselves up inside me, pulling in and out as his tongue kisses the little hardened bean, I moan loudly – so wet – and bend my body to his skill. I throb as his fingers penetrate me in timed sensual rhythm, throb and vibrate, my pussy getting hotter and hotter, the vision of his face shoved deep in between my legs to pleasure me, makes me start to cum. I ride Michael’s tongue and fingers and rub myself against his mouth until I feel the orgasm taking over me, no turning back. His hands grip my ass tight and he’s eating me as I yell out, my body writhing and moving against his strength. When it’s over and I’m over stimulated and need to rest, he gently kisses my pussy lovingly, holding me up so I don’t fall.

  I whisper, “Oh, Michael. That was amazing,” smiling, as little feather kisses stop. My eyes fly open. Jason stands up and looks at me, and I’m surprised to see him. I want to run, and I really don’t want to meet his eyes! But he’s only inches away and there’s nowhere to hide. He looks at me, sizing me up, putting together what he just heard. As he wipes his mouth, glistening with my juices and his saliva, he gives a barely perceptible nod and steps away.

  I want to say I’m sorry, but I’m so shocked and disoriented, my voice is gone. I’m watching him gather up my clothes and hand them to me. “Put these on and go home, baby. That’s all the fun we’re having tonight.”

  I take what’s handed, horrified. “Jason… I’m so sorry.”

  “You got it bad for this Michael, don’t you?” he says, cocking his head to the side and sizing me up from the corner of his eye. I suck both my lips into my mouth and hold them there, unable to answer. He nods again. “Yeah. You got it bad.”

  “Jason, I care about you,” I say quietly, slowly. “You know I do,”

  “I know, baby. We’re just friends, and that’s all we’re ever gonna be. I get it. But still…”

  “Yeah. I know. I’m going.” I put on my panties.

  “You can let yourself out,” he says, and walks off in the direction of his living room. I put on my clothes, but I shove my bra into my bag. I can’t wear it right now. If I put it on, I’m afraid it would suffocate me.

  Eighteen Minutes Later

  Standing on the s
ubway platform, I sneak a look at the many posters of upcoming movies and see one where someone’s drawn a mustache on Vince Vaughn. I bet he’s the kind of guy who’d think that was really funny. If Jess were here, we’d be amused together and she’d lighten my mood. As it is, I’m alone. I stare ahead and wait with a small group of three other New Yorkers, a group that grows to ten, fifteen, twenty, then forty, within less than five minutes. The wind picks up, the one that says a train is speeding toward you. I close my eyes because the idea of rat-poop, people-spit and dead skin cells blowing through the air and into my mouth and eyes, is something I’ll never ‘unsee’ once Amber pointed it out to me that that’s what happens. I used to think the wind from the trains down here in the tunnels was romantic. And Jason used to think he was enough for me. Knowledge kills.

  As the train comes to a stop, and the wind with it, my ears pick up a brief tidbit of conversation next to me, by two girls who look to be in their late teens. “Is she a model?” one whispers. “Gotta be,” the other says, eyeing me from the side. I wait until we walk on the train to look at them. I consider keeping my mouth shut, but tonight isn’t one of those nights. I turn to let them know with my face, that I overheard them. When I have their attention, I say, “I’m not a model, actually. Modeling doesn’t interest me. I wouldn’t wish it on one of my worst enemies and I suggest you follow my lead. But, thank you for the compliment.”

  They share a look and the shorter one asks me, as she grabs onto the pole with the lurching train, “Why not? I’d kill to be a model.”

  “Yeah?” Memories of my mother spring to mind, how little she ate, how it killed her in the end. How I’m alone now because she was so obsessed with being skinny. I look at these young souls and decide at the last moment to spare them my sob story. But it’s against my nature to hold back wanting to nudge them in a healthier direction. They’re both staring at me, waiting for the response they know is coming. I’m sure I look very serious. Good.