Page 42 of Frenched (Frenched 1)
“I guess.”
“Why’d you break up?”
“We wanted different things.”
“Ah.” I got the feeling his short answers were an indication he wasn’t that into talking about his ex-girlfriend, and probably I shouldn’t have asked, but I couldn’t resist one last question. “What was her name?”
“Jessica. You want to know her birth date and shoe size too?”
I smacked him on the leg. “Come on. I’m only curious. After all, you know a lot about me and Tucker.”
He grimaced. “Much more than I want to, thank you very much. Now no more talking about the past. It’s right here, right now, remember?”
“Yes.” But I couldn’t help wondering about Jessica, the lucky girl on the receiving end of his generous affections for so long a time. What did she look like? How long ago were they together? Why did they really break up? I wondered if she was still in New York and if he ever saw her. The jealousy returned, gripping me hard for a moment, and I had to take a deep breath and hold it until the ill feeling went away.
Here and now. Here and now. Here and now.
I took a few more deep breaths, and Lucas put his arm around me, draping his hand over my shoulder. His fingers grazed the skin just above the top of
my cami, really it was the top part of my breast, and my nipples immediately responded. I didn’t have to wonder long if Lucas noticed.
He tipped his head to mine buried his face in my hair. “You’re killing me in that little top. I’m not going to be able to walk off this train.”
I smiled. And I sincerely hoped the Rodin museum wasn’t very big. Nothing against nineteenth century art or anything, but I was working on a new list.
Things I Want To Do With Lucas
1) Test my blow job skills (and learn some new ones).
2) Take a shower (see what he looks like wet).
3) Let him do whatever thing he mentioned before that might scare me (whips and chains?)
4) Hear him talk dirty to me (a huge secret turn on)
5) Make him scream my name like I scream his (i.e., loud enough to wake the neighborhood, perhaps the 6th arrondissement, maybe even the whole Latin Quarter)
Not too much to ask, was it?
The museum wasn’t very big, but that wasn’t why I loved it.
As we wandered through, I could see why Lucas was so enchanted with it. Located in an eighteenth century mansion, each room was a wonder of light and shadow and elegance. The fancy baroque details of the house—the tall arched windows, the parquet floors, the detailed plaster and woodwork on the walls and ceilings, the gilt on the curvy antique furniture—all of it offered the perfect contrast to the raw muscular beauty of Rodin’s human figures.
Admittedly, part of my enjoyment was being there with Lucas, who held my hand and spoke quietly to me about Rodin’s artistic style and why it appealed to him.
“I like the way he didn’t make everything beautiful, you know?” We stood in front of a naked figure of a woman who appeared to be clutching herself in shame. “And I love the fragments, especially the hands. Look at this one here.”
He took my by the shoulders and turned me around, and I gasped as we approached a huge sculpture in front of a window. It was two hands, the wrists emerging from the block base, palms and fingers arched toward each other but barely touching. Soft light filtering through the panes created delicate shadows on the hands and in the airy space between them, and I wanted to try to capture it in a photograph, although I knew a picture would never do it justice. “They’re so beautiful. Are they praying?”
“No. It’s two right hands, see?”
I stopped hunting for my camera and looked closer. “It is two right hands. I didn’t even notice that.” For a moment I stopped to consider how it was possible for two right hands to join that way. “What do you think they’re doing?”
Lucas stood right behind me and whispered in my ear. “Well, I have a dirty mind, especially today, but if you ask me, those hands belong to two people having sex. There’s a tension there, like they’re just about to clasp, that makes me think…” He stood so close, I could feel his breath on my shoulder, his chest on my back, his hips right behind mine. My whole body was intensely aware of him. He brought his right hand up, palm toward me, just in front of my right shoulder. “See?”
Biting my lip, I brought my right hand up to meet his, mirroring the sculpture in front of us. My mind whirled with thoughts of him naked, pressed up tight against my bare back.
Standing up.
